Orthodox Family Blogs

Thursday, March 12, 2015

St.Gregory the Great, Pope of Rome

Our father among the saints St. Gregory I, also known as Gregory the Great, was the Pope of Rome from September 3, 590, until his death on March 12, 604. He is noted for his writings.
St. Gregory's family had large land holdings in Italy, which St. Gregory sold to help the poor following his father's death. After turning his home into a monastery named for St. Andrew, Pope Pelagius II appointed him as an ambassador to Constantinople; however, Gregory disliked the worldly atmosphere of the court and never learned Greek.
After his consecration as Bishop of Rome on September 3, 590, he negotiated a peace with the Lombards, who besieged Rome, and he dispatched St. Augustine of Canterbury to evangelize Britain.
He is known in the East as Gregory the Dialogist for his four-volume Dialogues, in which he wrote of the lives and miracles of the saints of Italy and of the afterlife. It is the primary source of the lives Moralia on Job, a commentary on the Book of Job; his Homilies on Ezekiel; the Pastoral Rule, which served as the prime manual for priests in the West for many years; and a great number of other sermons.
of St. Benedict of Nursia and his sister Scholastica.
He added the commemoration of the Apostle Andrew to the embolism on the Lord's Prayer in the ancient Roman Mass; as a result, the Roman Mass is often called the Mass of St. Gregory, especially among a number of Orthodox. He was a patron of ancient Western chant, often called "Gregorian chant" for his patronage.
The Orthodox church commemorates St. Gregory on 12 March, which is during Great Lent, the only time when the Divine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts, which names Saint Gregory as its author, is used.


He is also the patron saint of students, teachers, scholars, and musicians/singers

On a lighter note, there is a story about St. Gregory and his craving for cherries. Although it is mostly in Catholic texts and sources, he IS a major per-schism saint so I included it here :)

On April 25 on year (St. Mark's feast day)  the Holy Father Pope Gregory the Great, frugal by nature, was suddenly overwhelmed by an incomprehensible desire for...cherries. History recounts that servants and gardeners were at a loss. The spring weather was still fresh and raw, and the cherry trees, which grew in numbers along the hills of Trastevere, from the Janiculum to the Colle del Gelsomino, were only just in blossom.
Fortunately, one gardener who was wandering in gardens in despair, was visited by St. Mark in a cloud of fire! The saint asked him why he was in such a state. As soon as he heard the answer, he uttered a special blessing on a tree, and in a flash it was covered in fragrant, succulent red cherries. As the story handed down through the centuries in Roman dialect recounts, the Pope "se ne fece subito una bella panzata" ("wasted no time in wolfing down a bellyful"). Since then, on St. Mark's feast day, the Pope usually enjoys a nice bowlful of cherries, out of not so much greed as devotion to the saint. Like him, you should enjoy cherries on his feast day!








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