Probably the most striking figure on the throne of St. Peter at that time was St. Gregory I, nicknamed the Great (besides him, only two more Popes received such a nickname in the two thousand-year history of the papacy). His pontificate (as the time of the Pope's reign is called) fell on the years from 590 to 604. For Italy, this was a difficult period of the Lombard conquest, accompanied by epidemics and innumerable disasters. Seriously ill and already very elderly (according to medieval ideas, Gregory became Pope at the age of 50), the pontiff became the real ruler of Rome. He supplied the Romans with food, bartered and redeemed captives from the Lombards, and took care of the defense of the city. Gregory I wrote many works addressed not to learned theologians, but to ordinary believers. The Pope instructed them in the basics of the faith, advising them to repent and prepare for the end of the world, which, as Gregory believed, was not far off. “Why harvest the harvest if the reaper is not destined to live? Let each one take a look at the course of his life, and he will realize how little he needed. These lines, written by the hand of Gregory the Great, seem strange - after all, he himself took care of the good of Christians with amazing energy, "gathered the harvest." But in fact there is no contradiction here: Gregory taught not to forget about the eternal behind worldly concerns.
The Byzantine emperors were no longer able to protect the Western Church from the dangers threatening it - barbarian heretics and Arabs invading Europe. Moreover, from Constantinople they increased pressure on the Roman pontiffs, trying to subjugate the empire at least to the Popes; plans for Byzantine domination over all of Italy collapsed as early as the 6th century. By 700, it became clear that the papacy needed independence from secular power and, at the same time, strong military and political support. In Rome, they rely on the Franks - the most powerful and warlike people of young barbarian Europe. At the same time, the delimitation of the Eastern and Western churches, Orthodoxy and Catholicism begins. Their final split occurred much later, in 1054.
The calculations of Roman politicians turned out to be accurate. In the middle of the VIII century. The ruler of the Franks, Pepin the Short, having made two campaigns against the Lombards in Italy, recognized the Pope as the ruler of the "Heritage of St. Peter" - that was the name of the papal state created in Central Italy. One of the goals set in Rome was achieved - the Popes gained independence and stood on a par with the secular sovereigns of medieval Europe. Between 756 and 760 a fake document was drawn up in the papal office - the so-called "Konstantin's gift". According to this "gift", the Roman emperor back in the 4th century. ceded temporal power over Rome and the surrounding lands to the popes. On Easter 800, Pope Leo III crowned King Charles of the Franks with the imperial crown; the empire in the west was restored. In this way, strong imperial support was secured for independent popes.
A lot of effort was spent in Rome to justify the necessity and even the inevitability of the union of the papacy and the empire. They spoke, for example, of the "two swords," secular and spiritual, which must relentlessly smash the enemies of the Christian world. The secular sword is removed from its scabbard only in the name of the church, at the sign of the priest. The Pope was recognized as the custodian of both swords; since it was he who handed over the “sword” (i.e., power in worldly affairs) to the emperor, his power was the highest. The same ideas underlay the speeches about the "two luminaries" - the Sun and the Moon. Just as the moon reflects sunlight without having its own, so the emperor receives light (that is, again power) from the Pope, and through his mediation from God.
All these beautiful words, however, corresponded little to reality. The Western Church, having thrown off its old Byzantine fetters, instead fell into the strong nets of the emerging European feudalism. In the IX-X centuries. the power of the popes could only be a feudal power if the popes were willing to become real sovereigns. The church is drawn into the secular organization of power: bishops take vassal oaths to secular sovereigns, receive fiefs from them, carry out military service and, in turn, distribute church lands for holding to lay knights. The throne of St. Peter becomes a toy in the hands of several noble Roman families. The Church faces the threat of "secularization", dissolution in the world of violence and sin... It seems that the papacy cannot stand the test of power.
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