St. Gregory the Great, Pope and Doctor of the Church

St. Gregory was born of a patrician family in Rome in about 540. He was educated in law and entered the Roman civil service, and in about 572 he became prefect of Rome. Two years later (574), he decided to become a monk, and so he converted his house on Rome’s Coelian Hill into a monastery. In 579, Pope Pelagius II sent him to Constantinople (today’s Istanbul) as his apocrisiarius or representative to the imperial Byzantine court. Gregory was recalled to Rome (about 585 or 586) and became Pope Pelagius’s adviser. On the death of Pope Pelagius, Gregory was elected his successor and was consecrated on September 3, 590. As pope, he sent (596) St. Augustine of Canterbury (see May 27) and about thirty monks to convert England, and it was he who introduced several changes into the liturgy of the Mass, for example: the Kyrie and Christe eleison were to be sung alternately by clergy and laity, the Alleluia was to be dropped in penitential seasons, and the Lord’s Prayer was to be said after the Canon. He was interested in Church music and promoted a plainchant that now bears his name. He was the first pope to refer to himself as the “Servant of the Servants of God,” a title still in use by the popes today. In his dealing with the Church in Constantinople, he emphasized Rome’s primacy, maintaining that all bishops are subject to the Roman see, for the Roman Church has been set over all Churches. He was also a voluminous writer. Many of his homilies have been preserved, but he is best remembered for two works: Pastoral Care (about 591), which details the duties of a bishop toward his flock, and Book of Morals, a commentary on the Book of Job, which is, at the same time, a summary of dogmatic and moral theology as well as asceticism and mysticism. Gregory died on March 12, 604, but his memorial is celebrated today, the anniversary of his consecration as pope. His writings were so esteemed over the centuries that he was the most frequently quoted ecclesiastical author during the Middle Ages. Pope Boniface VIII declared him a doctor of the Church in 1298. St. Gregory is one of the four great doctors of the Latin Church.