St. Gregory II
Gregory · 715 – 731
Opposed Byzantine iconoclasm, supported Boniface's mission to the Germanic peoples, and strengthened the papacy's independence from Constantinople.
Gregory was a Roman who had accompanied Pope Constantine to Constantinople. As pope, he faced Emperor Leo III's iconoclasm policy head-on, refusing to destroy sacred images and writing forcefully that the emperor had no authority over matters of doctrine. He also commissioned St. Boniface to evangelize the Germanic tribes east of the Rhine, a mission that would reshape European Christianity. Gregory repaired Rome's walls, restored churches, and strengthened the Benedictine monastic presence on Monte Cassino. His pontificate marked a decisive turn of the papacy away from Byzantine dependence and toward the emerging world of Western Europe.
Breaking with the Emperor
When Leo III ordered the destruction of sacred images, Gregory told him, bluntly, that emperors do not decide doctrine. It was a dramatic assertion of papal independence. Gregory backed it up by strengthening ties with the Lombards and Franks, building relationships that did not depend on Constantinople. The papacy was charting its own course.