Saint Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople

On January 25, the Church commemorates Saint Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople. Both on this day and throughout the year, the Church glorifies him among the three great hierarchs and ecumenical saints and teachers, along with Basil the Great and John Chrysostom. In contrast further to these great saints and teachers, she calls him the Theologian, on a par with the beloved disciple of the Lord Jesus Christ, the apostle, evangelist and seer John. As if to explain such a lofty name, in one of its hymns the Church calls Saint Gregory of theology the most extreme mind, that is, the highest. Hail Father, proclaims the sacred chant, the theology of the utmost mind. The glory of Saint Gregory lies primarily in his divinely wise creations. Of these, the five words about God that the saint uttered during his time in Constantinople in the rank of archbishop are especially highly valued. In these words and other works, Saint Gregory the Theologian revealed with unshakable firmness and clarity possible for human strength the true teaching of faith about the Most Holy Trinity. This was during the most difficult time of the Arian Troubles, when in the capital of the Empire all the churches were occupied by the Arians, taking advantage of the favor of the Emperor Valens, who was fanatically partial to Arian falsehood. Called to the chair of archbishop, one might say, by a handful of Orthodox Christians who remained in Constantinople, Gregory settles in the house of one of his relatives, turns one room in this house into a church, calls this church Anastasia, which means resurrection, in the confidence that the holy faith will resurrect here, and begins to preach. The Ariapes, using all possible measures, hindered Gregory in his holy work, showered him with ridicule, openly cursed at him, and threw stones at him; but the people recognized the voice of their true archpastor and clung to his pulpit, “like iron clings to a magnet,” as Gregory put it. The Arians send a secret killer to him: he comes during Gregory’s sermon and, carried away by his word, falls at his feet. Marvelous triumph of the truth of Christ! An amazing path of Divine Providence, which in an era of terrible vacillation of minds and the strongest predominance of false thinking reveals such a powerful herald of faith in mind and word! How devoted Gregory himself was to this great cause, what strength of mind and energy of spirit it required, can be judged from the following words of the ascetic teacher: “I talk about the Most Holy Trinity more often than I breathe.” It was a great lamp lit by God during a time of severe darkness of minds! In teaching about the greatest mystery of the Christian faith, in the ability to express the deepest truth in a living and clear word, no one surpassed Gregory! And the Lord raised such a great proclaimer of the truth and placed him on the height of the throne of the great church at the most necessary time for this! This is the main feat of Gregory, which acquired him such a glorious name in the Christian Church. It is worthy of note that Gregory stood at the height of the throne of the Church of Constantinople, which was already acquiring ecumenical significance, for just over two years (379–381). The entire life of the saint was about 60 years (328–389), about 50 years before the accomplishment of the great feat and about 8 after completion. The first, long part of this time can be looked at as preparation for a feat, the rest as some rest after a feat and preparation for an endless blissful eternity. After 50 years of preparation for the feat, about thirty years are devoted to the upbringing and scientific education of the future great saint. Saint Gregory had extraordinary gifts from nature itself. He happily combined the subtle mind of a deep thinker with a feminine, so to speak, tenderness of heart, the high gift of a poet with a brilliant gift of oratory, powerful willpower and energetic persistence of action with softness and compliance. In terms of the depth of theological thoughts and the height of contemplation, our truly brilliant teacher, St. Philaret, Metropolitan of Moscow, is compared to him, and St. Philaret himself had special respect for the works of the ecumenical saint and teacher Gregory the Theologian. Already by this analogy one can judge what kind of talents Gregory had. Gregory's father, who also bore the name Gregory, was a man of respectable origin and quite rich, who owned an estate in the village of Arians, near the city of Nazianza, in which, three years after the birth of the future high priest, he was elected bishop. But his mother, Saint Nonna, one of those wondrous Christian wives, whose height the enemy of Christianity, the famous rhetorician Livanius, marveled at, had a special influence on Gregory’s upbringing. Gregory was the son of her fervent prayers. Even before birth, she had already dedicated him to the service of God. She made all the efforts of tender maternal love to preserve Gregory’s heart from his first years in purity and immaculateness, and gave him, with the help of God, such a firm direction towards goodness that he turned out to be unharmed among the most terrible temptations of corrupting paganism, preserved himself in such a way that, with all the rage of his opponents in matters of faith, not a single evil slander, which so often struck even the great, could touch his pure virginal and ascetic life ascetics. This virgin purity of heart is one of the necessary conditions for enlightenment and deepening of theological thought, according to the word of the Savior: Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God (Matthew 5:8) - and this purity of heart was guarded in Gregory by his tender, rationally caring mother. Saint Gregory portrays with lofty features the faith, piety, abstinence, and love of his wondrous mother, and in touching words of grateful love he confesses that he owes her more than all his mentors for his upbringing and affirmation in goodness. Saint Gregory supplemented his home education with a multifaceted education in the best schools of that time and his own zealous study of the word of God and the works of his fathers. The great saint highly aimed at scientific education and strongly denounced those who, being themselves ignorant, undertook to teach others. “For dancing and playing music,” he writes, “there are sciences; But is wisdom really such an easy thing that you just have to want it and you can be a scientist? Over the years, Gregory developed a special love for the study of eloquence, which was considered the most powerful means for defending the truth. He studied in Nazianza, Caesarea Cappadocia, Caesarea Palestine, and Alexandria and completed his education in Athens, where the then flourishing schools of pagan rhetoricians and sophists were united. In Athens, Gregory became close to Basil the Great. “God showed me a favor in this too,” wrote Gregory, that he united me by bonds of friendship with a wise man,” and he considered his fellowship more useful for himself than any school. Reviewing the course of the upbringing and education of Saint Gregory, one cannot help but recognize it as the most appropriate for the great feat that he was destined to accomplish in the Church. Who could know then, at the height of the Arian turmoil, where the Lord was preparing powerful instruments of His victorious power? Least of all, of course, the chosen one of God thought about this himself, who loved the silence of solitude with all his heart, was distinguished by the deepest humility and strenuously removed from himself all the worries of social activity and all the glory of the world. But in addition to extraordinary talents, above a thorough upbringing in faith and piety, above a comprehensive and deep scientific education, above the virgin purity of life and thoughts, this depth of humility and this removal from oneself of worldly glory befitted the chosen one. He who humbles himself will be exalted (Luke 18:14), After completing his education, about twenty years passed before he was called up for a great feat. Where was Grigory at this time? In different places and positions; but in all the circumstances of his life, in all the movements of his heart and will, the same Divine path was clear, preparing the chosen one to light this lamp at the right moment. This is how this path goes: he lives in the home of his elderly parents, providing them with filial services, and at the same time he carefully studies the Scriptures, exercises himself in silence, in feats of abstinence and self-denial, and devotes himself to prayer and pious reflection for a long time. For about two years, he stays with his friend Vasily in the desert. This was the happiest time for Gregory. In the solitude of the desert, the two friends made valuable extracts from the works of Origen. Gregory assimilated many of the brilliant thoughts of this brilliant teacher, avoiding his extremes and hobbies. In 361, Gregory, yielding to his father’s persistent desire and even some coercion according to the morals of that time, accepted the rank of presbyter and was encouraged by the fact that in this rank he could be his closest assistant to his parent. Gregory's friend Basil, meanwhile, achieved the high rank of archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and, having elected Gregory as bishop of the city of Sasim, consecrated him to this highest ecclesiastical degree. The city of Sasim was important in Vasily’s struggle with the opponents of his power, who were raised by the Arians against the zealous fighter for Orthodoxy, and he hoped to see in Gregory a wise and faithful assistant. But this insignificant and restless place was destined for Gregory. The bright lamp of faith was saved for another, higher and most difficult field of activity. Having also accepted episcopal consecration with some coercion, Gregory decisively refused the position offered to him and continued to help his elderly parent as his vicar. After the death of his parent, he retired to a secluded place in Seleucia of Isauria, subjected himself here to all sorts of hardships, mourned the death of people close to him, including his close friend Vasily, and thought that nothing awaited him in the world except sorrowful memories and ascetic deeds. He was over 50 years old; weak and sickly in body, he waited for the imminent hour of death. But in this solitude, amid sorrowful reflections, he heard in the unanimous desire of Orthodox Christians for the great reigning city the voice of God, calling to work and feat, and what feat? During Saint Gregory's stay in Constantinople, many things changed. Gregory arrived in the capital, as was said above, at the very height of Arian falsehood. At this time, Saint Gregory began his activity, and his mighty word broke and overthrew the heresy. No enemy measures could extinguish the light of truth. This great moral victory, through the action of the providential right hand of the Supreme Head of the Church, was followed by a sharp change in the affairs of the kingdom: after the death of Valens, the Orthodox Emperor Theodosius 1st reigned in the eastern half of the Roman Empire. He returns churches to the Orthodox and in a solemn ceremony introduces Archbishop Gregory into the main church of the capital. Gregory walked, bowing his head and shedding tears about why this great triumph of faith could not be accomplished only through moral means. Nevertheless, even under these favorable circumstances, much work still lay ahead for the valiant archpastor of the reigning city. The Arians continued to spread their false teaching. Their desire was revealed to humiliate and even deny the Divine greatness of the Third Phase of the Most Holy Trinity - the Holy Spirit. The doctrine of the Holy Spirit has not yet been revealed and defined to the Church. The Nicene Creed ended only with the following words: I believe... and in the Holy Spirit, amen. The clarification of this teaching is a special merit of St. Gregory, just as the disclosure of the teaching about God the Word is a special merit of Athanasius the Great. At the insistence of Saint Gregory and with his continuous labors, the 2nd Ecumenical Council was convened in Constantinople, at which the true doctrine of faith about the Holy Spirit was confirmed, the Nicene Creed was supplemented with five members and was finally approved in the form in which it is now proclaimed daily in the Church and serves as a guide for all believers. But these great labors, the incessant tension of the spirit, the cruel struggle with the enemies of the faith and the Church, many grave griefs from the like-minded bishops themselves - the fathers of the council - finally undermined the health and strength of the elder saint, and he needed rest and peace. Having accomplished his great feat, Saint Gregory begged the fathers of the cathedral: “give me the desert, let me go with prayers.” He spent the last eight years of his life in deep solitude, among incessant prayer, labors and exploits, preparing for death and ardently desiring to quickly unite with Christ. “I died to life,” he writes; alone in a dark cave, without shoes, without fire; My bed is tree branches, a sackcloth bed and dust on the floor, wetted with tears. Alas for me! I hasten to heaven, to God’s abode: this flesh holds me: release me, my King, from earthly bonds and bring me into heavenly glory.” On January 25, 389, the great saint departed to the Lord, bequeathing all his property to the poor. The life of St. Gregory is especially instructive for us about the difficult time we are experiencing, a wavering of minds unprecedented in Holy Rus' and a felt and undisguised danger for the holy faith and the church among our people, faithful and devoted to them from time immemorial. Unless the Lord is angry with us, we are not afraid of enemies who encroach on faith and the church. The Lord will raise up His power and send down His light to us at the right time. Even now it is impossible not to see some manifestations of His providential right hand. We firmly remember the covenants of Orthodoxy given to us by the great Moscow Saint Philaret; We heard the fiery word of the Kherson archpastor and with amazement we see with what power, not fully appreciated during his life, it now sounds, as if it were for these very days; we have heard and are hearing the wise word of the great ascetic and reclusive saint Theophan in his life; at sunset last year, the powerful herald of truth and denouncer of modern lies and untruths, the Right Reverend Ambrose of Kharkov, closed his lips and eyes. All these are instructive and comforting manifestations of God’s mercy and help to us! At present, all Orthodox Russia listens with special attention and respect to the renowned Kronstadt shepherd. What power of faith and hope it sounds now and especially now! How directly and loudly, in the hearing of everyone, it scourges the enemies of the church and the Russian people! Was it not for these troubled days of ours that the Lord led him and surrounded him with such love of the people and gave him such glory not only among our many millions of people, but also abroad, among heterodox and even heterodox inhabitants of distant countries? And this truly marvelous action of the power of the Almighty, which protected the Kursk shrine from criminal attacks and exposed both the insane audacity of young criminals and the abyss of moral decline in the environment from which these madmen came?! No matter how gloomy the fog of unbelief and lack of faith that has been cast upon us and now sweeping from the heterodox West, no matter how confused the thoughts about faith and the church are among those who should have shined for the lesser brethren and been for them in our holy antiquity a model of faith and an example of good morality, no matter how few bright spots we see in this environment that is proud of its education and so arrogant, let us hope that the Lord will again raise We need men of spiritual power and heavenly fire who will expose and cut through all the intricacies of lies, just as he once raised for the Church of Constantinople an archpastor so great in mind and word that he alone, like the great heroes of antiquity, stood up against everyone and, by the power of his pastoral word, broke and overthrew the power of the enemy.