text: Saint Gregory III, pope (731-741), a Syrian by birth, succeeded Gregory II in March 731. His pontificate, like that of his predecessor, was disturbed by the iconoclastic controversy in the Byzantine Empire, in which he vainly invoked the intervention of Charles Martel. Also during his reign he conferred the pallium on Saint Boniface in Germany, Willibald in Bohemia, and Bede in England carried on their most successful missionary labours. He died on November 29, 741.\n\nElected by popular acclamation, he was the last pope to seek the Byzantine exarch's mandate.