St. Gregory the Theologian

Gregory was born around 329 to wealthy Christian parents in Arianzus, near Nazianzus, in Cappadocia. His father (also called Gregory) was the bishop of the small town; his mother Nonna had brought her husband to the faith before the boy's birth. As a young man he went to study rhetoric at Caesarea in Cappadocia, then Caesarea in Palestine, then Alexandria, and finally Athens — where during a storm at sea on the way over he was confirmed in the longing to give his life to God. At Athens he met Basil, and the two of them formed a friendship that would last to the end.

He returned home around 358 and lived for several years at Basil's retreat at Annisi in the contemplative life he loved best. In 361 his father, against his wish, ordained him priest; he fled to Annisi in protest, came back at last in obedience, and preached the long oration "On His Flight" that contains his theology of priesthood. In 372 Basil — now archbishop of Caesarea — consecrated him, again against his wish, bishop of the tiny outpost of Sasima, a hot junction-town in the Cappadocian salt flats. He never settled there, and the wound between him and Basil over this assignment was the one shadow on their friendship.

In 379, after the death of the Arian Valens, the small remnant of Nicene Christians at Constantinople — orthodoxy had been driven out of the capital for forty years — called him to be their pastor. He came, and from the tiny house-church called the Anastasia ("the Resurrection") he preached the Five Theological Orations that would settle the doctrine of the Trinity for the East: the Father unbegotten, the Son begotten, the Spirit proceeding; one God in three persons; the Son is consubstantial with the Father, and so is the Spirit. Within two years the city had returned to Orthodoxy.

In 381 the Emperor Theodosius summoned the Second Ecumenical Council at Constantinople. The fathers placed Gregory on the throne of the imperial capital. Almost at once the Egyptian and Macedonian bishops contested his election; weary of the politics, he asked the council to set him aside. He went back to Arianzus and to the family estate, where he spent the last years of his life writing — letters, poems, hymns, a sustained autobiography in verse — until his death around 389 or 390.

Of all the Fathers, only three are given the title "the Theologian" by name — the apostle John, Gregory, and Symeon the New Theologian.