Память преподобного Григория Критского

Our venerable father Gregory was born in 760 on the island of Crete 274 from the pious spouses Theophanes and Juliana. With a good home upbringing, he also received a book education. At that time, confessors of the Orthodox faith suffered great oppression from heretical iconoclasts. Devoted to Orthodoxy since childhood and ardently desiring to observe the right faith in all its purity, the young man one day took a supply of food from home and retired to Seleucia 275 . He lived here for a considerable time, eating bread and water and leading a godly life in deeds of piety. After the death of Emperor Leo IV, the iconoclast 276, the Monk Gregory, in the twentieth year of his life, went to the holy city of Jerusalem to venerate its shrines. Here he stayed for twelve years, enduring cruel oppression from the Arabs 277 and the Jews with patience and joy. From there St. Gregory moved to Rome, where he took monastic vows as an angel, in which he labored, mortifying his flesh by abstinence. In 811 St. Nikephoros, Patriarch of Constantinople, sent St. Leo III 278 St. Michael the Confessor, Bishop of Sinada 279, with a conciliar charter on the coronation of Emperor Michael Kuropalatus 280. In Rome St. Mikhail became spiritually close to Rev. Gregory and, returning to Constantinople, took him with him, and then placed him in a monastery on Cape Akrit 281. Here the monk, for the sake of Christ, subjected himself to great hardships: he walked barefoot, had only one clothing, food, which consisted of a small amount of bread and water, ate only once every two or three days; he slept on matting, chose a deep hole for his home, and here he bitterly mourned the unrest that was then agitating the Christian churches 282 . Subsequently, the holy ascetic secluded himself in a cramped cell; From here he came out, dressed only in leather clothes, to apply water to a vat that stood near the monastery fence. Having completed this hard work, the monk retired to his cell and here he performed the cell rule. Thus, fighting a good fight, he gave his holy soul into the hands of God 283. The island of Crete, otherwise called Candia, from the main city of the same name, was located in the eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea, south of the Aegean Sea. Due to its vastness and fertility, it was formerly called the “queen of the islands” of the Mediterranean Sea. In ancient times, several cities were known with the name Seleucia: in Asia Minor, and in Mesopotamia, and in Syria, and Palestine. Due to its proximity to the island of Crete, this should mean an Asia Minor coastal city in Cilicia, in the southeastern part of Asia Minor. Leo - Byzantine Emperor, reigned from 776 to 780. The Arabs took Jerusalem in 636 under Caliph Omar. Michael Kuropalat, otherwise called Rangav, reigned from 811 to 813. On the Asia Minor shore of the Sea of Marmara. This refers to the unrest caused by the iconoclasts in the East and the new teaching about the procession of the Holy Spirit from the Father and the Son in the West. St. Gregory died around 820. You might be interested in: