Pope Gregory III

Pope Saint Gregory III (690 – 28 November 741) was pope from 731 to 741. A Syrian by birth, he succeeded Gregory II in March 731. His pontificate, like that of his predecessor, was disturbed by the iconoclastic controversy in the Byzantine Empire, in which he vainly invoked the intervention of Charles Martel. Elected by popular acclamation, he was the last pope to seek the mandate of the Byzantine exarch. Gregory immediately appealed to the Byzantine Emperor Leo III to moderate his position on the iconoclastic controversy. When this elicited no response, Gregory called a synod in November 731, the latter decided to bring the Pope under control. This included appropriating papal territories and transferring ecclesiastical jurisdictions...