Hieromartyr Gregory of Armenia

  • 0930gregoryofarmenia.jpgI’m get­ting ready for the week­end ser­vices, and I see that the saint of the day will be “Hiero­mar­tyr Gre­gory the Bishop of Greater Arme­nia, Equal of the Apos­tles and Enlight­ener of Armenia.”

    We’ll be hear­ing this hymn at Orthros tomorrow:

    See­ing a dread­ful spec­ta­cle, the unbe­liev­ers were amazed; for him whom they had believed dead in a deep pit with the wild beasts, they drew up liv­ing, safe and sound; and falling down, they cried aloud: Great is the God of Gre­gory, who hath revealed him in glory as an exceed­ingly bright star.

    – 2nd exaposteilarion

    And so I thought I’d read up on St. Gre­gory. What fol­lows is what was on the OCA Web­site (which, in case I’ve never men­tioned it, seems to have the best resources for lives of the saints), with a sub­head or two added in to break things up. At bot­tom is another hymn or two from Orthros:

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    Early life and polit­i­cal intrigues

    The Hiero­mar­tyr Gre­gory, Enlight­ener of Great Arme­nia, was born in the year 257. He was descended from the line of the Parthian Arsakid emper­ors. The father of St Gre­gory, Anak, in striv­ing after the Armen­ian throne, had mur­dered his kins­man, the emperor Kur­sar, in con­se­quence of which all the line of Anak was marked for destruction.

    A cer­tain kins­man saved Gre­gory: he car­ried off the infant from Arme­nia to Cae­sarea Cap­pado­cia and raised him in the Chris­t­ian Faith. At matu­rity, Gre­gory mar­ried, had two sons, but soon was left a wid­ower. Gre­gory raised his sons in piety. One of them — Orthanes, after­wards became a priest, and the other — Arostanes, accepted monas­ti­cism and went off into the wilderness.

    In order to atone for the sin of his father, who had mur­dered the father of Tiri­dates, Gre­gory entered into the ser­vice of the lat­ter and was a faith­ful ser­vant to him. Tiri­dates loved Gre­gory like a friend, but he was intol­er­ant of the Chris­t­ian con­fes­sion of faith. After ascend­ing the Armen­ian throne, he began to demand that St Gre­gory renounce the Chris­t­ian Faith.

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    Stead­fast­ness under tor­ments
    The stead­fast­ness of the saint embit­tered Tiri­dates, and he gave his faith­ful ser­vant over to cruel tor­tures: they sus­pended the suf­ferer head down­wards with a stone about his neck, for sev­eral days they choked him with a stink­ing smoke, they beat and ridiculed him, and forced him to walk in iron san­dals inset with nails.

    At the time of these suf­fer­ings St Gre­gory sang Psalms. In prison the Lord healed all his wounds. When Gre­gory again stood before the emperor cheer­ful and unharmed, he was aston­ished and gave orders to repeat the tor­ments. St Gre­gory endured them, not waver­ing, with all his for­mer deter­mi­na­tion and bear­ing. They then poured hot tin over him and threw him into a pit filled with vipers. The Lord, how­ever, saved His cho­sen one: the snakes did him no harm.

    Some pious women fed him with bread, secretly low­er­ing it into the pit. A holy angel, appeared to the mar­tyr, strength­en­ing and encour­ag­ing him. St Gre­gory remained in the pit for four­teen years.

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    hiergregory-and-virgins.jpgFel­low sufferers

    Dur­ing this time the emperor Tiri­dates exe­cuted the holy vir­gin St Rhip­sime, the aged abbess Gaiana and another 35 vir­gins from one of the monas­ter­ies of Asia Minor. As pun­ish­ment for this hor­ri­ble deed, the king’s face became disfigured.

    St Gre­gory was released from the pit, and buried the relics of the holy vir­gins with honor. Then he began to preach to the peo­ple, urg­ing them to turn away from the dark­ness of idol­a­try and toward Christ. The peo­ple came to believe in Christ, and wished to build a large church. When it was com­pleted, St Gre­gory had the relics of the holy nuns brought into it. Then he brought King Tiri­dates there before the bod­ies of the saints whom he had slain. He repented, and imme­di­ately his face was made whole once more.

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    “Enlight­ener of Arme­nia”

    Soon all of Arme­nia was con­verted to Christ. The tem­ples of the idols were destroyed, and churches for the wor­ship of the true God were built. St Gre­gory ordained priests, estab­lished schools, founded monas­ter­ies, and pro­vided for the good order of the Church.St Gre­gory went into the wilder­ness, where he departed to the Lord. His son Aris­tanes was made a bishop in Cap­pado­cia, and was one of the 318 holy Fathers at the Coun­cil of Nicea.

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    At Ves­pers and Orthros you’ll hear:

    Praise the Lord, all ye nations: praise him, all ye people.

    Waves of tor­ments could not shake thy soul, O glo­ri­ous ath­lete, nor the years that thou wast kept cap­tive in a gloomy pit where thou wast con­cealed; but thou didst shine like light on all those imper­iled in the star­less night of van­ity, mak­ing them sons of day through the holy laver of Bap­tism, that sav­ing and supe­rior true regen­er­a­tion to higher life, and through wise instruc­tions in truly liv­ing worthily of God, as a good hier­arch elect of God, all-wise Father Gregory.

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    For his mercy is great toward us, and the truth of the Lord endureth forever.

    Fair Rhip­sime, lov­ing Thee, Who art the Bride­groom Immor­tal and the Mas­ter of all things, suf­fered being flayed alive, hav­ing for­merly utterly rent apart all the gloomy sack­cloth of the pas­sions by her absti­nence; and with her in the fray, the renowned Gaiana fought valiantly and brought forth an assem­bly of vir­gins who con­tended with stead­fast­ness, wholly over­throw­ing the ancient foe that tripped the heel of Eve. As we befit­tingly honor them, Thee we glo­rify, O Christ.

    – Ves­peral and Orthros stichera

    I thought it was inter­est­ing that since St. Gregory’s life was inter­twined with Ss. Rhip­sime, Gaiana and the 35 vir­gins, they were the sub­ject of one of the stichera as well. And they share their com­mem­o­ra­tive day with St. Gre­gory, as so often hap­pens. Note, too, that the icon at top has St. Gre­gory flanked by the two women.


    Related posts:

    1. Prayer request
    2. St. Euphemia
    4. “Lord, have mercy”, cont.
    5. An addi­tional Cross-word

    September 29th, 2007 | Grace | 4 Comments |

4 Responses and Counting...

  • Mimi 09.29.2007

    Very inter­est­ing indeed. Holy Saints, pray to God for us.

  • Erica

    Beau­ti­ful, Beaut­ti­ful story.

  • Rand

    Very good, this is an answer to prayer, Gre­gory of Arme­nia just so hap­pens to be the topic of my Sun­day school class this week, thank you, God is good, and answers prayers.

  • Grace

    That’s amaz­ing! Glad to be of assis­tance. God is good indeed!

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