Gregory the Patrician

Gregory the Patrician (Greek: Γρηγόριος, romanized: Grēgórios; Latin: Flavius Gregorius, died 647) was a Byzantine Exarch of Africa (modern Tunisia, eastern Algeria and western Libya).

A relative of the ruling Heraclian dynasty, Gregory was fiercely pro-Chalcedonian and led a rebellion in 646 against Emperor Constans II over the latter's support for Monothelism.

[2] In an effort to lessen the tensions, in July 645 Gregory hosted a theological dispute in his capital Carthage between the Chalcedonian Maximus the Confessor and the Monothelite former Patriarch of Constantinople, Pyrrhus.

The obvious reason was the latter's support for Monotheletism, but it undoubtedly was also a reaction to the Muslim conquest of Egypt, and the threat it presented to Exarch of Africa.

[1] Given the failure of the imperial government in Constantinople to stop the Muslim advance, it was, in the words of Charles Diehl, "a great temptation for the powerful governor of Africa to secede from the feeble and remote empire that seemed incapable of defending its subjects".

[14][15] Agapius of Hierapolis and some Syriac sources claim that he survived the defeat and fled to Constantinople, where he was reconciled with Constans, but most modern scholars accept the Arab chroniclers' account of his death in battle.

Unable to storm the Byzantine fortifications, and satisfied with the huge amounts of plunder they had taken, the Arabs agreed to depart in exchange for the payment of a heavy tribute in gold.