Early Life and Career
Gregory was of Roman birth, the son of Marcellus and Honesta. As a young man he was placed in the papal court and entered church service through the schola cantorum. Under Pope Sergius I (687–701) he was appointed subdeacon and sacellarius, the office of almoner and treasurer, and he later became the first person known to have held the post of papal librarian.
Ordained deacon under Pope Constantine, he accompanied that pope to Constantinople in 711 to negotiate with Emperor Justinian II over the disputed canons of the Quinisext Council (the Council in Trullo). Gregory successfully worked out terms in those discussions. He was elected to the see of Rome on 19 May 715.
Opposition to Iconoclasm
Gregory II was the principal Western opponent of Byzantine iconoclasm. When Emperor Leo III issued his edict against the possession of icons around 726, Gregory immediately rejected it and dispatched two letters to the emperor explicitly denying the imperial right to interfere in matters of doctrine. In defense of the veneration of images he argued that they serve for remembrance, lifting the spirit upward toward those whose names the pictures bear.
In 727 he convened a synod at Rome that formally condemned iconoclasm and affirmed the proper veneration of images. According to the Catholic Encyclopedia he also threatened to depose Patriarch Anastasius of Constantinople for refusing to renounce iconoclasm. Greek sources claim that Gregory excommunicated Leo III, but no Western source confirms this, and some scholars have questioned the authenticity of the letters attributed to him. When in 722 the emperor attempted to raise taxes on the papal patrimonies, Gregory encouraged the Roman populace to resist and successfully prevented imperial enforcement.
Mission to Northern Europe
Gregory II was an energetic patron of missionary work among the peoples of northern Europe. In May 719 he commissioned the Anglo-Saxon monk Winfrid — later Saint Boniface — for missionary work among the Germanic peoples, and in November 722 he ordained him bishop and sent him to the nations of Germany.
He established a church hierarchy in Bavaria under Duke Theodo and, in 726, prevailed upon Corbinian to become Bishop of Freising. He received Anglo-Saxon pilgrims to Rome, including Abbot Ceolfrid and King Ina of Wessex, and worked to strengthen papal authority in the British and Irish churches.
Rome, the Lombards, and Church Administration
Gregory's relations with the Lombards were complex and often required his personal diplomacy. In April 716 he negotiated an agreement with King Liutprand that prevented a Lombard seizure of the Cottian Alps, and in 717 he funded the Duke of Naples to retake Cumae. In 729 he and Liutprand met at Sutri, where the king ceded Sutri and several hill towns of Latium to the papacy — the Donation of Sutri, the first extension of papal temporal territory beyond the Duchy of Rome. That same year Gregory brokered a truce between Liutprand and the Byzantine exarch Eutychius. Around 721 he had appealed to Charles Martel for Frankish intervention against the Lombards but received no response.
As a builder and administrator he repaired Rome's Aurelian Walls beginning at the Porta Tiburtina, converted his family mansion into the monastery of St. Agatha in Suburra after his mother's death, established the church of Sant'Eustachio, and restored the monastery of Monte Cassino, which had been damaged by the Lombards in 584. He held a synod at Rome in 721 addressing illegitimate marriages, mandated fasting on Thursdays during Lent, and settled disputes between the patriarchs of Aquileia and Grado.
Assassination Attempts and Death
Gregory faced several imperially connected plots against his life. Around 725 a conspiracy organized by the exarch Marinus and others was uncovered, and in 728 the new exarch Eutychius sent an emissary to assassinate him; both attempts were foiled.
Gregory died in Rome on 11 February 731 and was buried in St. Peter's Basilica, though the location of his tomb was subsequently lost. He was succeeded by Gregory III. His feast is listed as February 11 in most martyrologies, while the Orthodox calendar observes it on February 13.
