Pope St. Gregory II
669 CE–731 CE · Rome
A Roman who rose through the papal administration, serving as treasurer and librarian and accompanying Constantine to Constantinople, Gregory II proved one of the most consequential popes of the early eighth century. He firmly resisted Emperor Leo III's iconoclast decrees and a punitive tax policy, defending the veneration of images while striving to keep Italy from open revolt against imperial authority. He commissioned Boniface as missionary to Germany, decisively shaping the Christianization of central Europe, and he restored the abbey of Monte Cassino. His reign marks the papacy's growing orientation toward the Latin West and away from Byzantine control.
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RomeרומאItaly
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Rome in this era
Between the 8th and 15th centuries Rome was the seat of the popes and capital of the Papal States, which grew from the Frankish king Pepin's grant of 756; Charlemagne was crowned emperor in St Peter's in 800. The city shrank far below its ancient size, and from 1309 to 1377 the popes resided at Avignon before returning to Rome.
About Rome
Rome, on the Tiber in central Italy, grew from an Iron Age settlement into the capital of the Roman Republic and then of an empire that by the 1st century CE ruled the whole Mediterranean. Its Jewish community, attested from the 2nd century BCE, is among the oldest in Europe. Christian tradition holds that the apostles Peter and Paul died there, and the city became the seat of the popes. After the Western Empire ended in 476 it passed to Gothic kings, to Byzantium and then to papal rule as capital of the Papal States, until it became the capital of unified Italy in 1871. Vatican City, independent since 1929, lies within it.
In Rome at the same time
Pope Adrian I, Pope St. Paul I, Pope Stephen II, Pope St. Gregory III, Pope Constantine, Pope Sisinnius
In the same place & time
Sages whose lives overlapped with Pope St. Gregory II’s in the same cities, drawn from their recorded journeys.
In the same tradition
Pope Adrian I, Pope St. Paul I, Pope Stephen II, Pope Constantine, Pope St. Gregory III, Pope Sisinnius, Pope John VII, Pope John VI, Pope St. Sergius I, Pope Conon, Pope John V, Pope St. Benedict II, Pope St. Leo II, Pope St. Agatho, Pope Donus, Pope Adeodatus II, Pope St. Vitalian
The world in their lifetime
Thinkers and teachers of other traditions whose lives overlapped with Pope St. Gregory II’s — a glimpse of the wider world they lived in. Drawn purely from recorded birth and death years.
Works
No works attributed in the corpus yet.