St Gregory the Theologian

Biography

Born about 329 at Nazianzus, the son of its bishop, Gregory was the closest friend of St Basil and the most reluctant hierarch of his age. In 379 he came to Constantinople, where after forty years of Arian possession the Orthodox had not one church, and from the house chapel of the Anastasia he preached the Five Theological Orations that gave him his title.

The Second Ecumenical Council of 381 seated him on the throne of the capital; when his election was contested, he resigned it in open council for the sake of peace, saying he would be a second Jonah if the storm required it, and withdrew to Nazianzus, where he died about 390.

The controversy

• During his youth his own father, Gregory the Elder, bishop of Nazianzus, signed a compromised semi Arian formula in simplicity; the monks of Nazianzus and part of the flock broke communion with their bishop over it. Upon the elder Gregory's open Orthodox confession they were received back, and the younger Gregory preached the oration on peace at the healing.
• In the capital he faced the entrenched Arian establishment, the intrigues around his election, and the exhaustion of a Church long divided; his letters and orations weigh, again and again, what peace may lawfully cost.

Position taken

• Peace is a great good, but not at the price of the truth: the tradition received from him prices a commendable war above a peace that separates from God.
• His father's case shows both edges held together: the temporary separation of the zealous over a real compromise of the faith, and the full healing of communion upon the bishop's Orthodox confession, with no rival altar raised and no soul condemned in the interval.