ever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.'" (NIV)
             Gregory used this power given by the church to be an advocate of Cluny's reforms, which was to free clergy from both kings and "wives" and to create an independent and chaste clergy. He believed the church should be the clergy's lord and wife. He immediately set to work to reform a very corrupt and decadent Church--a huge and thankless task. The secular and sacred rulers of the time would work against him. Bishoprics and abbeys were sold, simony was accepted, clerical celibacy was flamboyantly disregarded, and offerings were misused and even bequeathed to the children of incontinent priests. He also wanted to end lay investiture.
             He deposed Archbishop Godfrey of Milan for simony, which is the selling of spiritual things, especially as church offices. He enacted decrees against simony and married clergy at his first synod in Rome, in 1074, and ordered an end to lay investiture, a practice where secular rulers would appoint clergy to positions of authority in the church to benefit themselves, at his second synod in 1075. These decrees aroused opposition.
             A council assembled in Paris claimed that the new decrees were intolerable. Gregory held fast and went further in the abolition of the system of lay investiture, excommunicating anyone--even a king--who should confer an investiture in connection with an ecclesiastical office.
             Gregory was generally successful with his reforms in England except in the matter of lay investiture, which William the Conqueror refused to surrender; gradually Gregory succeeded in France by replacing practically the whole episcopate; but in Germany and northern Italy he met continued resistance. Unable to
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