The reign of Justinian also marked the beginning of serious differences on doctrine and Church organization with the papacy in Rome. Justinian was himself deeply interested in theological questions, and had no hesitation in dictating to the popes, who had to confine themselves to verbal protests. The chief Church official in Constantinople, the patriarch, was appointed by the emperor and could be dismissed by him. Although on certain occasions in Byzantine history the patriarch stood up to his imperial master, he could not long sustain his position without imperial support. Thus the Church in Constantinople had all the power of the state behind it, while the popes in Rome were usually able to act more independently. The emperors thus constantly came into conflict with the pope, who claimed jurisdiction over the patriarch. In the eighth century a controversy broke out between the Byzantine emperor Leo III and the pope concerning the use of icons or images in church worship, the emperor taking the position that the icons were an aid only to superstition while the pope claimed that they heightened religious feeling. When Leo and his successors forbade the use of images and ordered them to be broken, the pope was powerless to do more than protest; but the Iconoclastic Controversy embittered relations between Rome and Constantinople for a century, and undoubtedly contributed to the desire of the popes to be protected by the Franks rather than by the Byzantine emperors, who were in their own view little better than heretics. The controversy was at last settled in favor of the papal position in the ninth century. But only twenty-four years later a further schism developed between the two Churches, and a Church council dominated by the Byzantines anathematized the pope and rejected papal supremacy (867). Though this quarrel too was patched up, Greek national feeling became involved, and the pretensions of Rome became ever more abhorrent to the Byzantines. Finally in 1054 the split became permanent, ostensibly on a question of doctrine—though the competing interests of pope and patriarch in southern Italy, which had just been conquered by the Normans, were perhaps more important at the time. The Orthodox and Roman branches of the Church have diverged on doctrine ever since.