Upon the election of Pope Gregory III as the Bishop of Rome in February 731, he wrote a series of letters to the Iconoclast Byzantine Emperor Leo III, expressing his condemnation of the practice of Iconoclasm and the persecution of the traditional venerators of religious images in the east [REF].
Infuriated by George's actions, Gregory summoned a synod sometime before October 731, with the intent of stripping George of his priesthood [REF].