Byzantine Papacy

[2] Boniface III himself attempted to outdo Phocas's efforts to Christianize the site, collecting twenty-four cartloads of martyr bones from the Catacombs of Rome to enshrine in the temple.

[2] At this time Salona in Dalmatia, Prima Justiniana in Illyricum, peninsular Greece, Peloponnesus, and Crete were under the ecclesiastical jurisdiction of Rome, and Constantinople was one of "the last places to which one could turn for refuge in the early seventh century".

[17] Theodore took the nearly unprecedented measure of appointing Stephen of Dor as apostolic vicar to Palestine, with the intent of deposing the Monothelite bishop successors of Sergius of Joppa.

[15] According to Ekonomou, "the Romans were as prepared to forget Pope Martin as Constans II was relieved to see him removed to the remote northern shores of the Black Sea".

[31] Much has been said of Constans II's motives—perhaps to move the imperial capital to Rome or to reconquer large swathes of territory in the mold of Justinian I—but more likely he only intended to achieve limited military victories against the Slavs, Lombards, and Arabs.

[43] During the pontificate of John V (685–686), the Emperor substantially lessened the taxation burden on papal patrimonies in Sicily and Calabria, also eliminating the surtax on grains and other imperial taxes.

[48] Sergius I would have objected to the approval of all eighty-five Apostolic Canons (rather than only the first fifty), various liberalizations of the issue of clerical celibacy, various prohibitions on blood as food, and the depiction of Christ as a lamb.

[55] Crossing paths with Constantine in Naples was exarch John III Rizocopo, who was on his way to Rome where he would execute four high-ranking papal officials who had refused to accompany the pope.

[47] According to Ekonomou: Although antagonism about the expense of Byzantine domination had long persisted within Italy, the political rupture was set in motion in earnest in 726 by the iconoclasm of Emperor Leo III the Isaurian.

[60] When the exarch donated six columns of onyx to the shrine of St. Peter in thanks for the pope's assistance in his release from the Lombards, Gregory III defiantly had the material crafted into icons.

[61] He further removed the bishoprics of Thessalonica, Corinth, Syracuse, Reggio, Nicopolis, Athens, and Patras from papal jurisdiction, instead subjecting them to the Patriarch of Constantinople.

[61] This was in effect an act of triage: it strengthened the imperial grip on the southern empire, but all but guaranteed the eventual destruction of the exarchate of Ravenna, which finally occurred at Lombard hands in 751.

Even Gregory would succumb, perhaps unwittingly, to the lux orientis [...] Once the political bonds had been reformed, both Rome and the Papacy would quickly begin to experience, even before the sixth century came to a close, its influence in other ways as well.

[74] Refugees from the Vandal persecutions in North Africa and the Laurentian schism accumulated in significant numbers in the early sixth century; a similar phenomenon occurred with the inhabitants of the eastern territories later re-conquered by the Byzantines.

[78] At the end of the sixth century Easterners remained a minority of the Roman clergy, although they were doubtlessly admitted into it (as determined by the names subscribing to synodical proceedings).

[80] These monastics "brought with them from the East an unbroken legacy of learning that, though shattered almost beyond recognition in the West, Byzantium had preserved in nearly pristine form from ancient times".

[81] Non-monks also emigrated to Rome, as can be seen in the skyrocketing popularity of names like Sisinnes, Georgios, Thalassios, and Sergius (and, to a lesser extent: Gregorios, Ioannes, Paschalis, Stephanos, and Theodoros).

[82] Ekonomou cites the appearance of these names, along with the disappearance of Probus, Faustus, Venantius, and Importunus as evidence of the "radical transformation in the ethnic composition of the city".

[83] Greek speaking prelates also become common in Rome at this time, concentrated around a ring of churches on Palatine Hill, dedicated to Eastern Saints: Cosmas and Damian, Sergius and Bacchus, Hadrian, Quiricius and Giulitta, and Cyrus and John.

[69] Greek influence was concentrated also in the diaconia along the Tiber, an emerging Byzantine quarter of the city, and the churches of San Giorgio in Vellabro and Santa Maria in Cosmedin.

Rome experienced a "short cultural efflorescence" in the early sixth century as a result of the translation of Greek works—"both sacred and profane"—into Latin, with the rise of an intellectual class fluent in both languages.

[85] Because traditional Classical education in Rome had declined "nearly to the point of extinction", even learned Latin scholars could not read such works in their original Greek and were forced to rely on translation.

[87] Until recently, scholars believed that papal texts were written in Latin and then translated into Greek; however, the evidence regarding the proceedings of the Lateran Council of 649 reveals exactly the opposite to be the case.

[91] This period laid the groundwork for Western mariology, built closely after the cult of Theotokos ("Mother of God") in the East, where Mary was regarded as the special protector of Constantinople.

[96] Maximus and his fellow Graeco-Palestinian future Pope Theodore I led a synod in Rome of predominantly Latin bishops that stymied Imperial efforts to enforce doctrinal unity (and thus end the domestic strife which much aided the Persian advance) on the issue of Monothelitism.

[98] However, "the irony was that Rome would experience its revitalization not by drawing upon its own pitiable resources, but rather through the collaboration of a Greco-Palestinian pope and a Constantinopolitan monk employing a style of theological discourse whose tradition was purely Eastern".

[99] For example, Roman churches adopted the practice of saying Allelueia in Mass except during the fifty days between Easter and Pentecost; in a letter, Gregory I acknowledged the development, but claimed it originated in Jerusalem and reached Rome not through Constantinople but through Jerome and Pope Damasus.

[93] The "more learned and sophisticated theological interests" of the Greek popes also added a new "doctrinal edge" to the claims of the primacy of the Roman Pontiff, "sharpened and fixed" by various confrontations with the emperor.

[101] According to Ekonomou, the Dialogues "best reflect the impact that the East exercised on Rome and the Papacy in the late sixth century" as they "gave Italy holy men who were part of an unmistakable hagiographical tradition whose roots lay in the Egyptian desert and the Syrian caves".

They are San Lorenzo fuori le Mura (580s), Sant'Agnese fuori le mura (625–638), Santo Stefano Rotondo (640s), and the chapel of San Venanzio in the Lateran Basilica (c. 640)[107][b] Illuminated manuscripts show similar developments, but it is difficult to see specifically Byzantine elements in the emerging medieval style of St Augustine Gospels of c. 595, the earliest Latin Gospel book, which very probably passed through the hands of Gregory I.