Gregory III of Rome

Pope Gregory III of Rome was bishop of Rome from 731 to 741, a Syrian by birth and the last pope of Syrian origin in antiquity. Like his predecessor he stood against the iconoclasm of Emperor Leo III. He is honoured as a saint of the undivided Church: OrthodoxWiki commemorates him on 10 December, the Catholic calendar on 28 November, the day of his repose.

He was the son of a Syrian Christian named John and was elected by popular acclaim at the funeral of Gregory II, on 11 February 731; he was consecrated only on 18 March, after receiving the approval of the Byzantine exarch of Ravenna, the last pope to seek it.

Immediately after his election he wrote to Emperor Leo asking him to moderate his stand on the icons. When his envoy was arrested, he called a synod in November 731 that condemned iconoclasm. Leo sent a fleet to subdue him, but it was wrecked in the Adriatic; he then seized the papal estates in Sicily and Calabria and transferred the dioceses of Illyricum to the patriarch of Constantinople. Gregory showed his opposition by upholding the veneration of the holy icons: he adorned churches with icons of Christ, the Mother of God and the saints, set up in Saint Peter's an iconostasis between six onyx and marble columns, and built an oratory there for the relics of several saints.

He supported Boniface's mission in Germany, making him archbishop in 732 and papal legate in 737, and the mission of Willibald. He gave the pallium to Tatwine, archbishop of Canterbury, and to Egbert of York. He favoured monasticism, founding the monastery of Saint Chrysogonus and rebuilding the hospice of Saints Sergius and Bacchus for the poor. Against the Lombards he asked help from Charles Martel, who did not answer. He reposed on 28 November 741.