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The saints

St. Gregory Nazianzen

A poet who wanted nothing but quiet, dragged again and again into the noisiest jobs in the Church.

Feast: 2 January · about 325 to about 390 · The early Church · Nazianzus, Cappadocia, and Constantinople

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Damaged fresco of St. Gregory Nazianzen, bearded, in bishop’s vestments, holding a scroll.

AnonymousUnknown author. Wikimedia Commons, Public domain.

Home / The saints / St. Gregory Nazianzen

Constantinople, 379

Gregory and Basil met as students in Athens and became lifelong friends.1

Gregory loved solitude, books and poetry, and he kept getting pulled out of them.1

When the Church of Constantinople had almost no Catholics left, Gregory was sent to preach there in a tiny chapel.

Patronage No official patronage we can cite yet. The Church honors him as “the Theologian” for his preaching on the Holy Trinity.

01St. Gregory Nazianzen

The Theologian

His sermons on the Trinity were so clear and beautiful that the East calls him simply the Theologian.1

Crowds grew, the Faith revived, and the Council of Constantinople in 381 confirmed what he had taught.2

02St. Gregory Nazianzen

Back to quiet

Opponents attacked him, and he resigned rather than divide the Church, and spent his last years writing poetry.1

Live it this week

Say yes to the job you didn’t want

Gregory kept wanting quiet and kept saying yes when the Church needed him. This week, accept one request you’d normally dodge (reading at Mass, coaching, a committee) and do it with your whole heart.

Notes

How we know · 2 sources for this page
  1. Franciscan Media, Saint of the Day: “Saint Gregory Nazianzen”. franciscanmedia.org. franciscanmedia.org
  2. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Gregory of Nazianzus”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: World English Bible, Catholic edition (public domain); Verse numbers are modern, with Douay-Rheims numbers in brackets where they differ. Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an errorCorrections.