Our father among the saints Grēgorios III, Pope of Rome

Saint Grēgorios of Rome

The twenty-eighth of November is the feast-day in the Orthodox Church of Saint Grēgorios of Rome, also known as Pope Gregory III. I have already presented on this blog a hagiography of Pope Gregory I, or Grēgorios o Dialogos, who did so much to promote the spread of Christianity in England. Like the first Gregory, the third Gregory in the Roman See did much to help spread the light of Christ into the northern reaches of Europe. A native of Syria, the third Gregory was instrumental in the fight against iconoclasm from the West.

Saint Grēgorios [Gk. Γρηγόριος, L. Gregorius, Syr. Grigorios ܓܪܝܓܘܪܝܘܣ, Ar. Ġrîġûriyûs غريغوريوس] was born in Syria around the year 669 to a father named Yûhannâ. He spent much of his early life there, though historians are not aware of many of the details of his early life. We know that he became a priest, and we also know that he had lived in Rome for some time before his election to the Papacy. It is likely that, like his predecessor Saint Sergios, he and his family were refugees from the Islâmic conquests and persecutions of Christians in the Levant, though we cannot be sure based on the sources we have.

We do know, however, that he had a high reputation as a priest in Rome for virtuous conduct and diligent pastoral care. He loved the people of Rome, and in turn he was beloved by them. Upon the repose of his illustrious Italian prædecessor, Pope Gregory II, Grēgorios was proclaimed Pope by popular acclaim in the city of Rome. Even so, Grēgorios waited for about a month to receive consecration, which indicates that he sought the confirmation and blessing of the Byzantine exarch of Ravenna, Eutychios, before taking office. Grēgorios did indeed love the people, but he had no desire to owe his office to a mob, and we can see that he sought the legitimacy of Constantinople as well as of the people of Rome.

But once in his office, Grēgorios did not bow to Constantinople – only to God. Though he had previously been involved in the arguments over the veneration of icons, and had appealed to the Emperor Lēon III the Isaurian to exercise moderation in his religious policies. But once he became Pope, Saint Grēgorios came forth at once with blunt condemnations of iconoclasm, sending legates and letters to Lēon urging him to desist from the destruction of holy images. Lēon responded with brute force, sending forces across the Mediterranean and seizing Papal properties which were under his jurisdiction, in Calabria and Sicily. However, the Emperor lost many of his men at sea and proved unable to control the Papacy directly, and Grēgorios was not cowed, but continued speaking out in favour of the veneration of icons. Most regional rulers ended up siding with the Pope over the Emperor in this case.

Similarly to his prædecessors of the same name, Grēgorios took a close and paternal interest in the well-being and good order of the Church in the northern reaches of Europe, among the Germanic tribes. In faithful England, Grēgorios affirmed the rights of the Bishopric of York in the election of Ecgberht to the office. He also blessed Saints Tatwine and Nóðhelm, in succession, as primates of Canterbury. He continued the support of Gregory II for the mission of Saint Boniface among the heathen in Frisia and northern Germany, naming him an archbishop and blessing him to establish two Benedictine cloisters – one in Fritzlar and one in Amöneburg. He met with Boniface in person at least once, in 738, having received him with great hospitality in Rome and conversed with him for a long time on spiritual topics. Saint Boniface asked the holy Pope of Rome to send with him back to Germany a helper, in the person of his nephew Willibald. At once Grēgorios sent for the monk and was at once impressed with him. In particular, we may imagine, Pope Grēgorios was happy to discuss with Willibald his travels as a pilgrim in Syria and the Holy Land. Saint Grēgorios sent Willibald with his uncle back into Germany to serve as an aid and support in his missionary efforts. Later Willibald himself would be made a bishop at Saint Boniface’s hands in Eichstätt.

Saint Grēgorios’s relations with other Teutonic nations were not nearly as cordial as those he enjoyed with the English. Much of his ten-year papacy was spent in power struggles with the Lombardic king Liutprant – who, although he was a pious Christian, generous and hospitable to the likes of Saint Boniface, was nonetheless politically ambitious and had territorial designs on the Italian Peninsula. Grēgorios managed to fortify the ancient walls of Rome in the hopes that it would ward off a Lombard attack, and in addition met in person with Liutprant to attempt to use moral suasion to ward him away from Rome. This worked for awhile, but with Liutprant continuing to make violent manœuvres on the frontier – and capturing four cities in the Duchy of Rome – he was compelled to seek aid from the Frankish king Charles Martel. Long story short: Martel promised help, but that help never came. It was in the midst of these political troubles that Saint Grēgorios reposed in the Lord, on the twenty-eighth of November, 741. A few days later, the cardinals of Rome chose Saint Zacharias, a Greek, as Grēgorios’s successor in office.

I have remarked on several occasions about the special link which præ-Schismatic Old England seems to have enjoyed with Antioch, and with the Christian East in general. Though this link was often (but not always) mediated, gæographically and administratively, by Rome, it still arguably goes back to the Princes of the Apostles themselves. The most prominent and most profound impact of Antiochian spirituality upon the English nation comes through the literal tutelage England enjoyed under the rule of Saint Theodore of Tarsos. Saint Theodore’s contemporary Saint Sergios provides another link between Syria and England. The cultus of Saint Ia in Cornwall, which shares some intriguing parallels with the Mesopotamian martyress under the Persians of the same name, provides another possible link, as does the patronage of that great Levantine Saint George of Lydda and the mediæval body of legend surrounding Saint Joseph of Arimathæa. To all these we must add the relationship that our Saint Grēgorios enjoyed with Saint Willibald, who had sojourned in that land for a significant portion of his life, and with his uncle Saint Boniface.

It is to their great credit that Syrians like Saint Grēgorios III did not take advantage of the old Anglo-Saxon talent for civilisational humility, borne perhaps in part out of a realisation that they lived at the ‘bottom’ of the world, but instead took the opportunity to guide, to nurture, to foster an Old English spirituality. That spirituality today exists as merely a shadow, an echo. The overbearing arrogance of the Normans, the expropriation of Church lands, the misguided zeal of centralising church ‘reformers’, the sustained repression of the English peasantry and the shift toward an œconomy of greed all contributed to the suppression of this native spirituality. Mercantilism, colonialism, capitalism, industrialisation and high finance have all taken a great toll upon the English people. The massive death toll and material deprivation that the British ruling class has unleashed upon the world – including upon Syria and the Arab world, a deprivation which continues to this day – often overshadows the much quieter impoverishment of English spiritual life by that same class.

Yet this echo of spiritual Old English reverence for the Eastern end of the Mediterranean can still be heard in English literature and art: in figures like the Syriac-versant Lancelot Andrewes, for example. Our good Dr Samuel Johnson, who wrote Rasselas, may be counted here with distinction; John Ruskin and William Morris, also. To this we may also add the more contemporary travel literature and journalistic work of Patrick Seale, of William Dalrymple, of the late, lamented Robert Fisk and the blessedly very much alive Jonathan Cook. For these things we must still thank our saints like the holy Pope Grēgorios III. Holy hierarch Grēgorios, beloved archpastor and gentle tutor of the Christian north, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!