St. Gregory the Decalogist was consecrated Pope of Rome on this day in 590. St. Gregory was born around 540 during the reign of Emperor Justinian in the East and the time of the invasion of Lombards (Germanic tribes) in Italy. The Bubonic plague that broke out in 541 caused the cities of the Roman Empire to dwindle to one-third of their previous size. The epidemic “ended” the period of Antiquity and moved Europe into the medieval era. Gregory came from an aristocratic lineage, with Pope Felix III (d. 483) as his predecessor. Greogry’s father was a Roman senator, and Gregory himself was a prefect of Rome. Although Gregory grew up in the Caelian Hill, a wealthy, elevated area of the Eternal City, he had a place in his heart for the poor. As Pope, he implemented the following dictum: “[T]he wealth belongs to the poor, and the church is only its steward.” He turned his family villa into a monastery. During his youth, St. Gregory was impressed by an encounter with as yet unseen enslaved people from the British Isles. While he was Pope, he commissioned St. Augustine of Canterbury to conduct a mission there. In 579, he became part of the intercultural ecclesiastical cross-pollination between the Western and Eastern Churches, being appointed Pope Pelagius’ ambassador (apokrisiarios) in Constantinople. The less than forty-year-old Gregory became persona grata among the crème de la crème of imperial society. St. Gregory demonstrated his strict adherence to Orthodox Christianity, standing against Patriarch Eutychios of Constantinople, who taught that the body at the resurrection would not be palpable. This dispute provided an opportunity for imperial intervention, and Emperor Tiberius II Constantine, based on Holy Scripture, proclaimed Eutyhchios’ view wrong and St. Gregory’s (who defended palpability) right. St. Gregory’s activities unfolded in various directions, including liturgically. Due to his input into creating a more penitential Lenten liturgy, this service became known after him in the East and West. Traditionally, the most important school of Latin liturgical plainchant has also been named after St. Gregory. While scholarly opinion now doubts that he authored the chants in their current form, he certainly made substantial contributions to church music. |
