My beloved spiritual children in Christ Our Only True God and Our Only True Savior,
CHRIST IS IN OUR MIDST! HE WAS, IS, AND EVER SHALL BE.

ON JANUARY 25th OUR HOLY ORTHODOX CHRISTIAN CHURCH COMMEMORATES THE FEAST OF THE LIFE OF OUR FATHER AMONG THE SAINTS GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN, PATRIARCH OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Saint Gregory the Theologian was born near Nazianzus, a town in Greater Cappadocia. His parents, Gregory and Nonna, were of noble ancestry and respected by all; however, the elder Gregory, being the child of a pagan father and a Jewish mother, was not a Christian in his younger years. He belonged to the sect of the Hypsistarii, which combined heathen and Judaic error. The blessed Nonna was the daughter of Christians and was herself an Orthodox Christian from childhood. She was reared in piety and perfectly instructed in the fear of God, which is the beginning of all wisdom. Divine Providence allowed her to be wed to an infidel (unbeliever), so that "the unbelieving husband" might be "sanctified by the believing wife" (1 Corinthians Ch. 7), as the holy Apostle says. Nonna constantly exhorted her husband to accept the True faith, and what is more, fervently prayed for him. However, her husband had a special dream in which he saw himself chanting the psalms of David. He awoke rejoicing and told Nonna everything. She understood that God was calling her husband to His Holy Church, and began with even greater fervor to teach him about the Christian faith and urge him to the path of salvation. The blessed Nonna took her husband to Bishop Leontius of Caesarea in Cappadocia, who baptized him. After his Baptism, Gregory led a God-pleasing life, as befits a true Christian. He also excelled in piety and good works that he later became Bishop of Nazianzus.

Living with such a man in honorable wedlock, Nonna naturally desired to bear him a son. She prayed to the Giver of all blessings, and even before conceiving promised, as once did Hannah, mother of Samuel, to dedicate her child to God (I Kings Ch. 1). The Lord, Who does "the will of them that fear Him" (Psalm 144) and hears "their supplication," fulfilled the request of that devout woman, revealing to her in a dream the birth of a son, the child's physical to Providence, offering the fruit of prayer as a gift to the Lord; however, she did not have the babe baptized. In those days many Christians were not baptized as infants; instead, their initiation was deferred until they were thirty years old, the age at which Christ our Lord was baptized by Saint John the Baptist in the River Jordan. Saint Gregory's Baptism was delayed until he reached that age, in accordance with the tradition. Subsequently, Gregory himself, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and other Holy Fathers condemned this practice.

Gregory was raised in accordance with Christian principles, learned to read and write while still very young, and grew in stature and wisdom. Attentive and diligent in his studies (as befitted one bearing the name Gregory, a name derived from the Greek word for "vigilant"), he surpassed in his intellectual achievements all his schoolmates. Youth did not hinder him from understanding subjects usually investigate only by those whose mental powers had reached their zenith.

After the holy Gregory's birth, the blessed Nonna bore another son, Caesarius, and a daughter, Gorgonia. She reared them in piety and taught them to read and write.

In Athens, Gregory devoted himself to his studies and was the object of astonishment, because of his keen intellect and chaste way of life. Before long Saint Basil, the Great also arrived in the city, intending to perfect his knowledge of secular philosophy. Gregory and Basil became close friends and resided together, sharing not only house and table but the same moral character.

Gregory and Basil lived in Athens for many years and completed their education there. Soon, however, Gregory learned that his father had been elected Bishop of Nazianzus, and he hurried back to Cappadocia. The blessed one was then 30 years old. Upon arrival in Nazianzus, he was baptized by his father. Eventually, his father compelled him to become a priest and would have had him a bishop, but Gregory was determined to avoid such high rank and the adulation that frequently accompanies it. Still aspiring to monastic stillness, he slipped away to his friend Basil, who had also been ordained to the priesthood and had written from the monastery he had founded in Pontus, inviting Gregory to join his large brotherhood. Together, Gregory and Basil wrote a rule for those struggling in asceticism.

Saint Gregory remained with the holy Basil for some time; then his brother Caesarius died. Gregory's father, overwhelmed by grief, wrote his surviving son and pleaded that he return and assist him in his declining years. Partly because he did not wish to disobey his father, and partly because the Church was in great turmoil on account of Arianism (to which even Gregory's father, lacking any theological education, was somewhat inclined), the Saint left Pontus. Arriving in Nazianzus, he aided his father in administering the church and their household, explained to him the dangers of the Arian heresy, and confirmed him in Orthodoxy.

Saint Basil consecrated him bishop of Sasima and Emperor Theodosius quickly called him to the vacant Archiepiscopal throne of Constantinople. His works were manifold, the best-known being his theological writings, for which he received the title 'the theologian'. He is particularly famed for the depth of his Sermons on the Holy Trinity. He also wrote against the heretic Macedonius, who taught wrongly of the Holy Spirit (that the Spirit was a creature of God), and against Apollinarius who taught that Christ did not have a human soul but that His Divinity was in place of His soul. He also wrote against the Emperor Julian the Apostate, his sometime schoolmate. In the year 381 A.D., when a quarrel broke out in the Council concerning his election as Archbishop, he withdrew himself, declaring: 'Those who deprive us of the (archiepiscopal) throne cannot deprive us of God.' He then left Constantinople and went to Nazianzus, remaining there in retirement, prayer, and the writing of instructive books until his death. And, although he was in weak health all his life, he lived to the age of 70. His holy relics were later taken to Rome and his head to the Cathedral of the Dormition in Moscow. He was, and remains, a great and wonderful light of the Orthodox Christian Church, as much for the meekness and purity of his character as for the unsurpassable depth of his mind. He entered into rest in the Lord in the year 389 A.D. (Sources: The Great Collection of The Lives of the Saints and Prologue from Ochrid)

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TOMORROW, SATURDAY JANUARY 25TH: FEAST-DAY OF SAINT GREGORY THE THEOLOGIAN, ARCHBISHOP OF CONSTANTINOPLE

Orthros (Matins) at 9:00 a.m.
Divine Liturgy at 10:00 a.m.

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"Glory Be To GOD For All Things!" - Saint John Chrysostomos

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With sincere agape in His Holy Diakonia (Ministry)
The sinner and unworthy servant of God

+Father George