Pope Gregory II
Saint Gregory II,
pope from
715 or
716 to
February 11,
731, succeeded
Pope Constantine, his election being variously dated
May 19, 715, and
March 21, 716. Having, it is said, bought off the
Lombards for thirty pounds of gold, he used the tranquillity thus obtained for vigorous missionary efforts in
Germany, and for strengthening the papal authority in the churches of England and Ireland. By excommunicating the
Byzantine emperor Leo III the Isaurian, he prepared the way for a long series of revolts and civil wars, which tended greatly to the establishment of the temporal power of the popes. He died in 731, and subsequently attained the honour of canonization,
February 13th being the day consecrated to his memory in the
Martyrology
from the 9th edition (1880) of an unnamed encyclopedia