Gregory of Nazianzus the Elder

Gregory of Nazianzus the Elder was bishop of Nazianzus in Cappadocia during the fourth century and the father of Gregory of Nazianzus the Theologian. He was born in the later third century, according to the conventional reckoning about 276, into a family of local wealth and civic standing. The family property included an estate at Arianzus near Nazianzus. In his earlier life he belonged to the Hypsistarians, a syncretistic group attested in Cappadocia and neighbouring regions of Asia Minor. Its adherents worshipped a single “Most High” God (Hypsistos), observed practices reminiscent of Judaism such as the Sabbath and certain dietary customs, and also retained features associated with pagan and possibly Iranian piety, including reverence for fire and lamps. He was a man of means and municipal prominence rather than a professional theologian or monk.

His conversion to Christianity was due above all to his wife Nonna, who came from a Christian family and is herself venerated as a saint. The principal narrative of his life is the funeral oration later delivered by their son (Oration 18). According to that account, Nonna’s persistent prayer, example, and instruction, together with a dream or vision granted to Gregory, led him to accept the faith. He was baptized in the mid-320s, in the years around the Council of Nicaea. Not long afterward, despite his relatively recent conversion and limited theological formation, he was chosen and consecrated bishop of Nazianzus, probably in 328 or 329. He held that see for some forty-five years. As bishop he was remembered for practical administration, generosity to the poor, and the building of a new church at Nazianzus to replace an earlier, inadequate structure. He was not a speculative writer; his reputation in the sources is that of a conscientious local pastor of considerable age and authority.

In the doctrinal conflicts of the mid-fourth century he was induced, around 360, to subscribe an ambiguous Homoean formula connected with the councils of Rimini and Constantinople. That step provoked a schism among the more strictly Nicene clergy and monks of his diocese. His son Gregory returned from a more withdrawn life to assist him, preached, and helped restore communion and peace in the local church. Gregory the Elder and Nonna had three children who reached adulthood: Gorgonia, who married and was commemorated as a saint; Caesarius, who became a physician and imperial official; and Gregory, the future orator, theologian, and briefly bishop of Constantinople. All three children, like their parents, came to be honoured as saints in East and West. In his last years the elder Gregory relied increasingly on his son’s presence and rhetorical skill at Nazianzus.

He died in 374 at an advanced age, traditionally described as nearly one hundred years. His son composed and delivered the lengthy funeral oration that remains the chief literary source for his career. Nonna died later the same year. Gregory of Nazianzus the Elder was never pope or patriarch; Nazianzus was a modest Cappadocian see under the metropolitan of Caesarea. He is venerated as a saint, especially in the Eastern Orthodox Church, where his memory is kept on 1 January. No formal medieval act of canonization or beatification is recorded, and no specific patronages are securely attached to him as distinct from those of his more famous son. The portrait that survives is that of a converted provincial notable who became a long-serving Nicene bishop and the head of one of the most prominent Christian families of fourth-century Cappadocia.