Gregory II

Pope Gregory II (669–731), Bishop of Rome from 715 to 731, played a crucial role in two of the defining struggles of the eighth-century Church: the defense of sacred images against Byzantine iconoclasm and the expansion of Christian mission in northern Europe. When Emperor Leo III the Isaurian issued his decree against the veneration of icons in 726, Gregory firmly opposed the policy while carefully avoiding an outright break with the empire. His resistance to iconoclasm strengthened the papacy's emerging independence from Byzantine authority and helped prepare the ground for the eventual alliance between the popes and the Frankish kings. Gregory also supported and directed the great missionary enterprise of Saint Boniface in Germania, commissioning him to evangelize the Germanic peoples east of the Rhine. This mission laid the foundations of the medieval German Church and deepened the ties between the papacy and the Frankish world that would culminate in the Carolingian alliance.