His constancy and courage were called forth in contest with the Greeks, with that Eastern Empire which was represented by functionaries whose odious exactions had quite as great a share in the despair of the people as the ravages of the Barbarians, and whose malice was more dreadful than the swords of the Lombards. His entire life was a struggle with the patriarch of Constantinople, who aimed at supplanting the Roman pontiff, as well as with the emperor, who would have dominated Italy without defending her, and ruled the Church as if she were a department of the State. Among so many conflicts, we shall dwell only on that one which arose between him and John the Faster, patriarch of Constantinople. Relying on the support of most of the Eastern bishops, this patriarch took to himself the title of Universal Bishop. Gregory stood up with vigour against this pretension. He did not draw back before the emperor, who openly sided with the patriarch of his capital, nor before the patriarchs of Antioch and Alexandria, who sided with the Byzantine patriarch. "What!" wrote Gregory to the emperor, "S. Peter, who received the keys of heaven and earth, the power of binding and loosing, the charge and primacy of the whole Church, was never called the Universal Apostle; and yet my pious brother John would name himself Universal Bishop!" For himself he says, "I desire to increase in virtue and not in words. I do not consider myself honoured in that which dishonours my brethren. It is the honour of the universal Church that is my honour. Away with these words which inflate vanity and wound charity. The holy council of Chalcedon and other fathers have offered this title to my predecessors, but none of them have ever used it, that they might guard their own honour in the sight of God, by seeking here below the honour of all the priesthood." This weighty difference, the prohibition addressed by the emperor to soldiers against their becoming monks, and the contest which arose between the pope and the emperor touching the irregular election to the metropolitan see of Salona, contributed to render almost permanent the misunderstanding between them. These perpetual contests with the Byzantine court may explain, without excusing, the conduct of Gregory at the death of the Emperor Maurice. This prince, infected, like all his predecessors, with a mania for interfering in ecclesiastical affairs, was very superior to most of them. Gregory himself has more than once done justice to his faith and piety, to his zeal for the Church, and respect for her canons. After twenty years of an undistinguished reign, a military revolt broke out, which placed Phocas upon the throne. This wretch not only murdered the emperor Maurice, gouty, and incapable of defending himself, but also his six sons, whom he caused to be put to death under the eyes of their father, without even sparing the youngest, who was still at the breast, and whom his nurse would have saved by putting her own