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Gregory I (The Great), Saint, Pope, Doctor of the Church; b. at Rome about 540; d. March 12, 604. Read more from the original Catholic Encyclopedia.
- Overview
- Historical context and early career
- Accomplishments as pope
St. Gregory the Great (born c. 540, Rome [Italy]—died March 12, 604, Rome; Western feast day, September 3 [formerly March 12, still observed in the East]) pope from 590 to 604, reformer and excellent administrator, “founder” of the medieval papacy, which exercised both secular and spiritual power. His epithet “the Great” reflects his status as a wr...
Gregory was born in troubled times. Cities and commerce had declined, and cycles of famine and the plague had depopulated the countryside in the wake of the emperor Justinian’s reconquest of Italy (535–554). The Lombard invasion of 568 triggered several more decades of war. Centralized bureaucratic control over civil matters continued to fragment, and this gave rise to local strongmen who held power at the expense of the civilian senatorial aristocracy. Usurpations of the property, rights, authority, and even regalia of others marked this fluid society. The church in these times either could act as a check against this new military aristocracy—in Rome the Senate was defunct, and the papacy assumed civic responsibilities—or could serve the secular ambitions of the strongmen and their patronage networks; Gregory fought tirelessly against these latter corruptions.
Gregory was well placed in society. His family held the Caelian Hill in Rome, properties outside the city, and estates in Sicily, and he may have shared distant links to gens Anicia, an eminent patrician family. His ancestors had held illustrious ecclesiastical positions: Pope Felix III (reigned 483–492) was his great-great grandfather, and Pope Agapetus I (535–536) also may have been a relative. Gregory’s father, Gordianus, held an office, possibly defensor, but no record of secular office exists for the family before 573, when Gregory became urban prefect, an office that eventually fell into desuetude. Germanicus, who succeeded Gregory, may also have been his brother. Gregory’s mother, Silvia, took vows on the death of her husband, and three of his aunts also entered religious life.
Well educated for the times, Gregory may have had legal training before entering public service. His conversion to monastic life in 574 was not sudden but grew from a lifelong conflict between his personal desire for contemplative purity and the public duty to serve others in the “pollution” of worldly affairs. Renouncing secular life, Gregory established, on family property on the Caelian Hill, a monastery dedicated to St. Andrew. The “rule” followed there cannot be identified as that of St. Benedict, nor does evidence exist that Gregory became abbot, although his Dialogues may give this impression. Gregory founded six more monasteries on family estates in Sicily but retained sufficient property to make later endowments to the church.
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In 579 Pope Pelagius II made Gregory a deacon, sending him as apocrisiarius (legate) to Constantinople. There Gregory lobbied for aid against the Lombards but remained ignorant of Greek. In 585–586 he returned to Rome and St. Andrew’s, resuming the office of deacon. In 590 Gregory was elected pope, taking office unwillingly. He succeeded Pelagius II, who had succumbed to the plague that swept Rome that year. According to tradition, Gregory led a penitential procession to Santa Maria Maggiore during that plague; a vision of the archangel Michael atop Hadrian’s Tomb (now the Castel Sant’Angelo) convinced him that Rome would be spared. Today a statue on the Castel Sant’Angelo depicts Michael replacing his sword in its scabbard. The Seven Penitential Psalms associated with this procession date from the 12th century and have been incorrectly ascribed to Gregory.
As pope, Gregory faced numerous challenges, including those posed by the Lombards, who sought to control Italy and practiced Arianism, and those posed by the Byzantines, who employed strategies that were designed to protect Ravenna, the administrative centre of Byzantine government in Italy, at the expense of Rome. Indeed, both Lombards and Byzantines posed threats: the sedition of imperial soldiers was as troubling as the swords of the Lombards. Forced to orchestrate an independent policy, Gregory saw himself as the “treasurer” who paid the daily expenses of Rome and the “paymaster” of the Lombards, whose swords were held back only by daily ransom from the church. In conducting war, he planned strategies, funded soldiers, and directed diplomacy, twice preventing Rome from being sacked by the Lombards. He also ransomed hostages, supported refugees, secured the grain supply, and repaired aqueducts.
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Realizing he could neither defeat the Lombards militarily nor continue a cycle of warfare and ransom, Gregory repeatedly sought peace. However, a Roman alliance with the Lombards (and Gauls) would have threatened the independence of Ravenna, and Byzantine opposition to Gregory’s efforts undermined the peace in Italy. Nevertheless, there was a rapprochement with the Lombards. Through Gregory’s relationship with Theodelinda, the Catholic wife of the Lombard king Agilulf, Catholics became welcome at court. After 600, relations between Lombard and Roman Italy improved greatly. Friendship and patronage had thus accomplished what military strategy and imperial policies could not.
The problems with the Lombards underscore the tensions between Rome and the East at that time and also illuminate traditional administrative divisions between the north, Italia annonaria, dominated by the sees of Milan, Aquileia, and eventually Ravenna, and the south, Italia sububicaria, led by Rome and including Sicily and islands under the exarch of Africa. A fierce opponent of any practice smacking of simony (the purchase of ecclesiastical office) or other forms of corruption, Gregory rebuked offenders vigorously but often to little effect, because of the limits of his authority within Italy and the empire as a whole.
Gregory felt that he was part of a Christian empire, a “holy commonwealth” headed by the Byzantine emperor. Ideally, the emperor deferred to the church (though generally he did not), even as the church recognized him as a power ordained by God (for good or evil). Ambivalence dictated discretion: Gregory would execute obnoxious laws (such as Emperor Maurice’s prohibition of monastic life for state employees) while simultaneously protesting such laws. He explained this practice in one of his letters: “I have thus done my duty on both sides. I have obeyed the emperor, and yet have not restrained what ought to be said on God’s behalf.” He often protested Maurice’s policies regarding the Lombards and the church, and his dislike of Maurice explains his warm welcome to Phocas, the bloody usurper of the imperial throne, in 602.
Sep 3, 2021 · St. Gregory, one of only three popes to enjoy the appellation “the Great” (John Paul II may someday join them). The parallels between his life and ours are striking. Gregory was the 64th pope,...
Jul 11, 2005 · Learn about the remarkable legacy of Pope Saint Gregory the Great and his role in shaping Western Civilization.
Sep 3, 2015 · Today is the feast of St. Gregory the Great, Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604. My use of “bishop of Rome” is intentional – as I will show in a moment, Gregory’s example as the “Servant of the Servants of God,” a title he coined, is echoed in Pope Francis’s practice of the papacy.…
Sep 1, 2010 · Gregory the Great was a man of extraordinary talents and energy. He was prefect of Rome at the age of 30. He raised up a monastery on the Caelian Hill. He served as papal ambassador to Constantinople. He sent forth the mission under St. Augustine of Canterbury that converted England.
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5 days ago · (c. 540 – March 12, 604) Saint Gregory the Great’s Story. Gregory was the prefect of Rome before he was 30. After five years in office he resigned, founded six monasteries on his Sicilian estate, and became a Benedictine monk in his own home at Rome.
