This volume addresses the important mediaeval dynamic of the competition between those sees from an imperial Romano-Byzantine perspective, that is, from the point of view of how the imperator-basileus and his deputy, the oecumenical patriarch, interpreted scriptural and ecclesiastical tradition, canon law, and Roman political theory to buttress the late Roman and Byzantine vision of imperial vicegerency in the Roman Christian mundus-oikoumene. In so doing, the essay serves as an advantageous foil for the insightfully argued and Roman Catholic-centred perspective of Anastos's close colleague at Dumbarton Oaks, Francis Dvornik, in the latter's study, Byzantium and the Roman Primacy.

Byzantine Rome and the Greek Popes examines the scope and extent to which the East influenced Rome and the Papacy following the Justinian Reconquest of Italy in the middle of the sixth century through the pontificate of Zacharias and the collapse of the exarchate of Ravenna in 752.

This volume provides an overview of the development of the Patriarchate of Constantinople as central ecclesiastical institution of the Byzantine Empire from Late Antiquity to the Early Ottoman period (4th to 15th century CE).