Saint Gregory the Theologian, Archbishop of Constantinople
Archbishop of Constantinople, Great Hierarch, 'the Theologian'
- Feast day
- January 25
- Lived
- c. 329–390
- Patronage
- Theologians, poets, those who love solitude
Only three saints bear the title 'Theologian' in the Orthodox Church: the Apostle John, Symeon the New Theologian, and Gregory of Nazianzus, whose Five Theological Orations settled the Church's language about the Holy Trinity.
Life
Gregory was born near Nazianzus in Cappadocia to Saint Gregory the Elder and Saint Nonna. Studying at Athens with Basil the Great, he longed above all for the quiet of the contemplative life, and was repeatedly pulled out of it — ordained priest against his will by his father, made a bishop by Basil, and finally summoned to Constantinople when the city had been in Arian hands for decades.
Preaching in a small house chapel called the Anastasia, he restored the Nicene faith to the capital by argument and holiness alone. The Second Ecumenical Council of 381 met under his presidency; when its politics turned bitter he resigned publicly rather than be the cause of division, and returned to his estate to write poetry until his death.
Teaching
His formulation that 'what is not assumed is not healed' remains the classic Orthodox statement of why Christ had to take on a full human nature, body and rational soul. His orations on the Nativity and on Pascha are woven directly into the hymnography of those feasts.