Grigorios of Antioch

Grigorios of Antioch, known in English as Gregory of Antioch, was the Chalcedonian (Greek Orthodox) patriarch of Antioch in the later sixth century. He held the see from about 570 until his death in 593, having been appointed by the emperor Justin II after the deposition of Anastasius I. Almost all that can be said of him with confidence comes from the Ecclesiastical History of Evagrius Scholasticus, a contemporary who served Gregory as legal advocate (scholasticus) and knew him personally, together with notices in other Byzantine writers and letters of Pope Gregory the Great. No reliable source records his birth year, birthplace, family, or burial.

Before his elevation Gregory had been a monk. Evagrius describes him as having been distinguished in the monastic life at the monastery of the Byzantines, a house associated with Jerusalem, and as later presiding as abbot over a monastery in the Sinai region (sometimes identified with Pharan). That monastic reputation, and imperial favour, led to his selection for Antioch, one of the principal sees of the Eastern Roman Empire and a centre of the struggle between Chalcedonian and Miaphysite Christians in Syria. As patriarch he upheld the Council of Chalcedon and the religious policy of Constantinople.

His tenure was troubled by grave accusations. Asterius, the comes Orientis (count of the East), charged him with incest and with pagan practices. Gregory was summoned to Constantinople, examined by a synod, and acquitted; Evagrius, who pleaded for him, treats the charges as calumnies born of political and personal enmity. After the trial he returned to his see. In 588–589, during the war with Persia, the Eastern field army mutinied against its commanders. Gregory was sent to the camp to restore discipline. Evagrius records an oration in which the patriarch appealed to the soldiers’ loyalty to the emperor Maurice and to Christian duty, after which the mutiny subsided.

Gregory corresponded on friendly terms with Pope Gregory I, who wrote to him about church business and papal envoys. A small corpus of Greek homilies has been transmitted under his name, including discourses on the baptism of Christ and on the myrrh-bearing women at Christ’s tomb; later scholars have questioned the authenticity of some pieces in the collection. He died in 593, after which the previously deposed Anastasius I was restored to the patriarchate. Precise details of his origin and of his tomb are not preserved.