Gregory the Illuminator

Life events

1. Born

   Gregory was born c. 252–257 as the son of Anak, a Parthian nobleman who assassinated the Arsacid king of Armenia Khosrov II at Sasanian instigation and was then killed along with his family. The infant Gregory escaped with his nurse and was brought to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was raised as a Christian.

2. Educated

   Raised in Caesarea of Cappadocia, Gregory received a Christian upbringing. Jean-Michel Thierry described him as of 'Cappadocian culture and religion' and credited him with having introduced 'Greek civilization to Armenia.' He married Mariam, daughter of a Christian named David, and had two sons, Aristaces and Vrtanes, both of whom later succeeded him as patriarchs of Armenia.

3. Imprisoned — 287

   After entering the service of King Tiridates III of Armenia and refusing to sacrifice to the goddess Anahit, Gregory was subjected to many tortures. When Tiridates learned that Gregory was the son of his father's assassin, he had Gregory cast into Khor Virap — Armenian for 'deep pit' — a dungeon near Artaxata, where Gregory remained for thirteen or fifteen years.

4. Other — 301

   Released from Khor Virap after Tiridates' sister Khosrovidukht reported a vision directing the king to free him, Gregory healed Tiridates, who Agathangelos records had been driven into animal madness. Tiridates and his court accepted Christianity, making Armenia the first state to adopt Christianity as its official religion — traditionally dated 301, though modern scholars favor c. 314.

5. Consecrated — 302

   Gregory traveled to Caesarea with a retinue of Armenian princes and was consecrated bishop of Armenia by Leontius of Caesarea. Until the death of Nerses I in the late fourth century, Gregory's successors continued to be confirmed at Caesarea, keeping Armenia under the titular authority of the metropolitans of Caesarea.

6. Baptized — 302

   Gregory met King Tiridates near the town of Bagavan and baptized the Armenian king, army, and people in the Euphrates. He subsequently erected shrines to the martyrs Gayane and Hripsime at Vagharshapat on a site revealed to him in a vision — the place later called Ejmiatsin, meaning 'descent of the only-begotten,' which became the mother church of Armenian Christianity.

7. Other — 325

   Gregory appointed his younger son Aristaces as his successor and retired to live an ascetic life in the cave of Manē in the district of Daranali in Upper Armenia. According to Movses Khorenatsi, he occasionally emerged to travel the country until Aristaces returned from the Council of Nicaea in 325, after which Gregory was never seen again.

8. Died — 328

   Gregory died in seclusion in the cave of Manē and was buried nearby by shepherds who did not recognize him. Cyril Toumanoff dates his death to 328. His remains were later transferred to the village of Thodanum (modern Doğanköy, near Erzincan), and relic fragments are now dispersed at monasteries on Mount Athos, Etchmiadzin, Naples, Nardò, and Yerevan.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Gregory spent thirteen or fifteen years in Khor Virap, a pit-dungeon near Artaxata, before being released through a vision reported by Tiridates' sister Khosrovidukht — one of the longest recorded imprisonments in early Christian hagiography. (likely)
• Gregory's descendants, called the Gregorids, held the office of Patriarch of Armenia hereditarily with some interruptions from Gregory's own tenure until the death of Patriarch Isaac in the fifth century; it is in Gregory's honor that the Armenian Church is sometimes called lusavorchakan ('of the Illuminator') or Gregorian. (likely)
• A ninth-century mosaic of Gregory was uncovered in the south tympanum of Hagia Sophia in 1847–49 during the Fossati brothers' restoration, depicting him in bishop's robes alongside the Fathers of the Church; historian Sirarpie Der Nersessian linked his inclusion to the myth of Arsacid ancestry fabricated for Emperor Basil I. (likely)
• When an earthquake struck Nardò, Italy on February 20, 1743, destroying nearly the entire city, the statue of Gregory was reportedly the only structure to survive intact; the city has held three days of annual commemorations ever since, and two relics are preserved in Nardò Cathedral. (plausible)
• Gregory's feast day is September 30 in Eastern Orthodox and standard Roman Catholic practice (2004 Roman Martyrology), October 1 in the 1962 Roman Missal and its predecessors, and March 23 in the Episcopal Church (USA) and the Anglican Church of Canada. (certain)