A graver conflict had arisen in the East. Constantinople, with its million citizens and its superb imperial palace, naturally regarded its archbishop as too elevated to submit to Rome, and its ruling prelate, John the Faster,--a priest who rivalled Gregory in virtue and austerity,--assumed the title of "Ecumenical Bishop." Gregory protested, but the Emperor Maurice, with his customary bluntness, ordered the Pope to be silent. A few years later, however, some aggrieved Eastern priests appealed to Rome, and Gregory wrote, in entirely Papal language, to ask John for a report on their case. When John lightly, or disdainfully, answered that he knew nothing about it, the Pope lost his temper. He told his ascetic brother that it would be a much less evil to eat meat than to tell lies: that he had better get rid of that licentious young secretary of his and attend to business: that he must at once take back the aggrieved priests: and that, although he seeks no quarrel, he will not flinch if it is forced on him.[104] John made a malicious retort, by inducing the Empress Constantina to make a request for relics which Gregory was bound to refuse. The priests were eventually tried at Rome. Whether Gregory's sentence was ever carried out in the East, we do not know, but John took the revenge of styling himself "Ecumenical Bishop" in his correspondence with Gregory, and the Pope then tried to form a league with the patriarchs of the apostolic Sees of Antioch and Alexandria against the ambitious John. In his eagerness to defeat John, he went very near to sharing the Papacy with his allies. Peter, he said, had been at Antioch before Rome, and Mark was a disciple of Peter; therefore the three were in a sense "one See."[105] He added that Rome was so far from aspiring to the odious title that, although it had actually been offered to the Popes by the Council of Chalcedon, neither Leo nor any of his successors had used it.[106] To John himself Gregory sent a withering rebuke of his pride. To the Emperor Maurice he described John as "a wolf in sheep's clothing," a man who claimed a "blasphemous title" which "ought to be far from the hearts of all Christians"! John may "stiffen his neck against the Almighty," he says, but "he will not bend mine even with swords."[107] He assured the Empress Constantina that John's ambition was a sure sign of the coming of Anti-Christ.[108]