The Council _in Trullo_ (named from the {90} dome-shaped place of meeting), 691, called also _Quini-sextan_, summoned by Justinian II. (685-711), was not Oecumenical, and was disciplinary rather than dogmatic. It condemned many Roman practices, and asserted definitely that the patriarchal throne of Constantinople should enjoy the same privileges as that of Old Rome, should in all ecclesiastical matters be entitled to the same pre-eminence, and should rank as second after it. The _Liber Pontificalis_, the Roman Church history of the time, states that the pope's legates gave assent to the decrees, which is unlikely. But this one was no more than the repetition of many previous statements, as emphatic in the sixth as in the seventh century. The position was simply that claimed by the patriarch John when he signed the formula of Catholic faith drawn up and proposed by Pope Hormisdas. [Sidenote: Repudiation of Roman claims.] He insisted on prefixing a repudiation of the Roman claim to supremacy over Christendom. "I hold," he declared, "the most holy Churches of the Elder and the New Rome to be one. I define the See of the Apostle Peter and this of the Imperial City to be one See." By this it is clear that he designed to assert both the unity of the Church--which, as it has always seemed to the East, was threatened by the demand of the Roman obedience--and the equality of the two great churches of the Old and the New Rome. Justinian I. spoke of Constantinople as "head of all the churches" ("omnium ecclesiarum caput"), but it is clear that he did not regard this position as conferring any supreme or exclusive jurisdiction. It was a title of honour which he would use of other patriarchates; and that he did not consider the power {91} of the patriarchates as unalterable is seen by his attempted creation of the new jurisdiction of his own city Justiniana Prima (Tauresium), a few miles south of Sofia, over a large district. To the archbishop whom he here created he gave authority to "hold the place of the apostolic throne" within his province.[3] [Sidenote: Independent attitude of Constantinople.] This position, then, of the Byzantine patriarchate, as independent of the other patriarchates, and equal to that of the older Rome, but occupying in point of honour a secondary position, was recognised by Church and State alike; and it was this that the Council _in Trullo_ reaffirmed. In another point it was divergent from Rome--that of the marriage of the clergy. Subdeacons, deacons, and priests were forbidden to marry, but those married before ordination were equally forbidden, under pain of excommunication, to separate from their wives. An attempt of the mad emperor Justinian II. to enforce the acceptance of the decrees by Pope Sergius I. was a complete failure. Popes were becoming much stronger in Italy than was the distant Caesar.