W. Robert Godfrey

So there was this ongoing sense we want to have some measure of connection back and forth.

Well, if Justinian marks the point at which there is a break between East and West, then Pope Gregory I

marks the point at which the papacy begins to emerge as an increasingly independent authority in the West.

I say begins to emerge because nothing is as simple as we would all like it to be.

There continued to be connections between East and West, but with the emergence of Gregory, known to history as Gregory the Great, Gregory I, as Pope, we begin to see the Pope becoming an increasingly independent operator in the West.

The Pope beginning to be, in the early centuries of the Middle Ages, the strongest independent figure in the West, a rallying point

for many in the West, the papacy becoming an institution of continuity of history.

So as some in the West felt, well, the empire seems to be disappearing.

There seems to be a decentralization of civilization occurring.

There does seem to be a loss of some of the old Roman structures of society.

Where can we look for continuity?

Who will provide assurance that things are continuing?

and it was to the papacy that they looked.

The papacy, the bishop of Rome, had been around in the ancient church.

The bishop of Rome had been recognized as a leading church authority in the ancient church period, and so in an age of some anxiety, people were able to look to the bishop of Rome as a point of continuity, as a point of

security as a civilizing as well as Christianizing presence in the West.

And Gregory became a key foundational example of that because of his own talent and because of his own opportunities in the days in which he lived.

He was born in 540, so he and Justinian overlapped a little bit.

He was born actually to quite a rich family in Rome, ancient, influential family in Rome.

He was involved for a time in the city life, in the political life of the city, and then felt that he wanted to take his Christianity more seriously.