saint
St. Gregory the Decapolite
Ninth-century monk from the Greek Decapolis who journeyed through Asia Minor, Italy, and Thessalonica leaving a trail of disciples, and ended his life in Constantinople as a confessor of the holy icons under the Patriarch Nicephorus.
Gregory the Decapolite — Public domain. Via Wikimedia Commons.
Life
Gregory the Decapolite was born around 780 in the Greek Decapolis — the ten cities of Isauria in southeastern Asia Minor — to a noble family who had hoped to marry him well. He resisted their plans, fled to a small monastery in the mountains, was tonsured a monk, and from the very beginning of his religious life sought the most rigorous solitude.
His youth coincided with the second wave of iconoclasm. Gregory, refusing to subscribe to any compromise on the icons, lived for years as a wandering ascetic — moving from cave to cave through Asia Minor and the Aegean islands, dodging the persecutors and offering counsel to the Christians of every region he passed through. He spent a period at Constantinople in the lay state, encouraging the iconodule faithful, and another period in southern Italy where he labored among Greek Christians in the Lombard territories.
He died around 842, just before the final restoration of the icons under the Empress Theodora. His feast falls on November 20, the eve of the Entrance of the Theotokos into the Temple.
Traditions
Feast day
November 20
Topics
Works in library