<P> The Byzantine Papacy was a period of Byzantine domination of the papacy from 537 to 752, when popes required the approval of the Byzantine for episcopal consecration, and many popes were chosen from the apocrisiarii (liaisons from the pope to the emperor) or the inhabitants of Byzantine Greece, Syria, or Sicily . Justinian I conquered the Italian peninsula in the Gothic War (535--54) and appointed the next three popes, a practice that would be continued by his successors and later be delegated to the Exarchate of Ravenna . </P> <P> With the exception of Pope Martin I, no pope during this period questioned the authority of the Byzantine monarch to confirm the election of the bishop of Rome before consecration could occur; however, theological conflicts were common between pope and emperor in the areas such as monotheletism and iconoclasm . Greek speakers from Greece, Syria, and Byzantine Sicily replaced members of the powerful Roman nobles in the papal chair during this period . Rome under the Greek popes constituted a "melting pot" of Western and Eastern Christian traditions, reflected in art as well as liturgy . </P> <P> Pope Gregory I (590--604) was a major figure in asserting papal primacy and gave the impetus to missionary activity in northern Europe, including England . </P> <P> The Duchy of Rome was a Byzantine district in the Exarchate of Ravenna, ruled by an imperial functionary with the title dux . Within the exarchate, the two chief districts were the country about Ravenna where the exarch was the centre of Byzantine opposition to the Lombards, and the Duchy of Rome, which embraced the lands of Latium north of the Tiber and of Campania to the south as far as the Garigliano . There the pope himself was the soul of the opposition . </P>

The papacy reached the height of its power in the middle ages