St. Gregory Nazianzen

ST. GREGORY NAZIANZEN
Archbishop of Constantinople, Doctor of the Church
(312-390)

Here is yet another saint who fought against the Arians, along with St. Basil and St. Athanasius. They upheld the eternal Truth, and were persecuted for it.


St. Gregory was born in 312 near Caesarea of Cappadocia, of parents who are both honored as Saints, and the infant was immediately consecrated to God. After learning all that he could in his native land, he journeyed to Caesarea in Palestine to study at the famous school founded by Origen, then went to Alexandria in Egypt to rejoin his brother there. After some time he embarked for Athens, the metropolis of the sciences and the humanities. During the voyage, a storm of twenty days' duration nearly caused the loss of the ship and all passengers; their safe arrival in Athens was attributed to St. Gregory's prayers, and all aboard adopted Christianity.

In Athens he met and became the close friend of Saint Basil, and these noble souls turned away together from the most attractive worldly prospects. For some years they lived in seclusion, self-discipline, and studious labor, knowing only two roads, Gregory wrote, "one to church, the other to school." Only after thirty years of studies and good works in Athens did they leave that city and separate. They would meet again in the year 358, to live in solitude for a time in the Province of Pont. Basil and Gregory, it has been said, were the pioneers of Christian eloquence.

St. Gregory was raised to the priesthood almost by force, preaching his first sermon, after a ten-weeks' retreat, on the dangers and responsibilities of the priesthood. In 372, when he was sixty years old, he was consecrated a bishop by his dear friend Saint Basil, who had become Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. All their lives they would correspond; many of St. Gregory's noble and eloquent letters to St. Basil can still be read among the 212 pieces of his correspondence which are still conserved.

St. Gregory's rare gifts and conciliatory disposition had become well known. In the year 379, when he was sixty-seven years old, he was chosen to be Patriarch of Constantinople. That city was distracted and laid waste in those times by Arian and other heretics. After a reception which was at best lukewarm, the new Patriarch labored there successfully, from his base in a small church named the Anastasia (Resurrection), where he gave instructions and saw the number of his listeners increase daily.

The Arians were so irritated at the decay of their heresy that they pursued the Saint with outrage, calumny and violence, and at length resolved to take his life. For this purpose they chose an intrepid youth who was willing to undertake the sacrilegious commission. But God did not allow him to carry it out; he was touched with remorse and cast himself at the Saint's feet, avowing his sinful intent. Saint Gregory forgave him at once, treated him with all kindness and received him among his friends, to the wonder and edification of the whole city and to the confusion of the heretics, whose crime had served only as a mirror to the virtue of the Saint.

St. Jerome states that he himself learned at the feet of this master, who was his catechist in Holy Scripture. But St. Gregory's humility, his austerities, the humble appearance of his aging and worn person, and above all his very success in Constantinople, did not cease to draw down upon him the hatred of every enemy of the Faith. He was persecuted by the magistrates, stoned by the rabble, and thwarted and deserted even by his brother bishops. During the second General Council, hoping to restore peace to his tormented city, the eloquent bishop, whom the Church calls Saint Gregory the Theologian, resigned his see and retired to his native town, where he died in the year 390.

"We must overcome our enemies," said St. Gregory, "by gentleness, and win them over by forbearance. Let them be punished by their own conscience, not by our wrath. Let us not at once fell the fig tree, from which a more skillful gardener may yet entice fruit."
“God accepts our desires as though they were a great value. He longs ardently for us to desire and love him. He accepts our petitions for benefits as though we were doing him a favor. His joy in giving is greater than ours in receiving. So let us not be apathetic in our asking, nor set too narrow bounds to our requests; nor ask for frivolous things unworthy of God’s greatness.”

Following is a sample of his preaching, given on the 2nd Sunday of Easter:

"I will stand upon my watch," says the admirable Prophet Habacuc. I, also on this day, will imitate him; I will stand on the power and knowledge granted me by the favour of the Holy Ghost, that I may consider and know what is to be seen, and what will be told unto me. And I stood and watched: and lo! a man ascended to the clouds; and he was of exceeding high stature, and his face was the face of an angel, and his garment was dazzling as a flash of lightning. And he lifted up his hand towards the East, and cried out with a loud voice. His voice was as the voice of a trumpet, and around him stood, as it were, a multitude of the heavenly host, and he said: "Today is salvation given to both the visible and the invisible world. Christ hath risen from the dead: do ye also return. Christ hath freed Himself from the tomb: be ye set free from the bonds of sin. The gates of hell are opened, and death is crushed; the old Adam is laid aside, and the new One is created. Oh! if there be a new creature formed in Christ, be ye made new!"

'Thus did he speak. Then did the other angels repeat the hymn they first sang when Christ was born on this earth, and appeared to us men: "Glory be to God in the highest, and peace on earth to men of good will!" I join my voice with them, and speak these things to myself heard throughout the whole earth!

It is the Pasch of the Lord! the Pasch!---in honour of the Trinity, I say it a third time: the Pasch! This is our Feast of feasts, our Solemnity of solemnities. It is as far above all the rest, not only of those even which belong to Christ and are celebrated on His account--yea, it as far surpasses them all as the sun surpasses the stars. Commencing with yesterday, how grand was the day with its torches and lights!...But how grander and brighter is all on this morning! Yesterday's light was but a harbinger of the great Light that was to rise; it was but a foretaste of the joy that was to be given to us. But today we are celebrating the Resurrection itself, not merely in hope, but as actually come to pass, and drawing the whole earth to itself.'"
Years ago, we had the priest tell us, on Easter morning, that the Resurrection did NOT really happen, and that the stories in the Bible are just that, stories! I was shocked, to say the least, and too dumbfounded to say anything. However, today, I would probably stand up and ask the question: "Then WHY are we here?" Even as an ex-protestant I knew that what he had said was scandalous. This priest has since moved up within our diocese (of course), but is still probably teaching his lies to the sheeple!