One of four Doctors of the Western Church, this great pope is closely linked to the English Church, for it was he that sent the monk Saint Augustine from the monastery Gregory himself had built on the Coelian hill in Rome to England. Augustine landed in Kent as abbot of a new monastic community and very soon with episcopal orders, being named by Gregory as first archbishop of Canterbury. Gregory had envisioned two metropolitan archbishoprics in England, but York was only to be lastingly established long afterwards.
But what of the Holy Father Gregory? I'm indebted again to the Holy Father Benedict's summary in the collection of his sermons called Doctors of the Church. He was the bishop of Rome at the turn of the seventh century, sixty-fourth in the line of the Apostle Saint Peter, and patriarch of the Latin church, a member of a leading Roman family called Anicia, well-known as Christians and Catholics. Two other popes were Anicians, including Gregory's own great-great-grandfather, the Holy Father Felix III, in the fifth century. Both Gregory's parents, Gordian and Sylvia, are Saints of the Church, and his devout aunts Aemiliana and Tharsilla, contributed to his sure foundation as a Catholic. After a brief career in the civil service in the Holy City, he transformed the family home into the monastery of Saint Andrew on the Coelian hill and retreated there, but was called out of seclusion because of his reputation as an administrator and diplomat. The Holy Father Pelagius ordained him deacon and sent him as legate to Constantinople, capital of the Roman Empire, in order to deal with the monophysite heresy and to acquire assistance for Rome against the Germanic invaders called Lombards. Recalled to Rome, Gregory became secretary to the Holy Father. At a time of general turmoil, including terrible flooding and outbreak of disease, Pelagius died and Gregory was elected in AD 590 to the See of Saint Peter. He became a firm rock at a time when Europe was changing rapidly, as the old Empire continued to die and several Germanic tribes established a new order: Visigoths in Iberia, Franks in Gaul, Angles and Saxons in Britain, and the Lombards in north and central Italy. Gregory personally worked for peace in Italy, through dialogue with the Lombard king Agilulf and his Bavarian queen, Theodolinda, she a Catholic. Thus cultivating the Catholic faith among the Lombards, Gregory also established peace between them and the Byzantine power in Constantinople. Meanwhile, he established works of charity, helping the poor with food and ransoming the captives of the Lombards. And this he managed while himself in bad health, brought on apparently through his severely ascetic lifestyle. He died in AD 604, a father to his people, a foundation of peace and a source of hope in desperate times.
Saint Gregory leaves us much to profit from, including a registry of more than eight hundred letters (including to our Saint Augustine) and his homilies on Holy Scripture, we have his Dialogues, which were composed for Queen Theodolinda and demonstrated the importance of personal holiness, open to being acquired by all Christians, even in difficult times. There is also his Pastoral Rule, his original programme for the Church, written at the beginning of his pontificate, which calls the care of souls 'the art of all arts.' Like the other Fathers, Gregory was not very innovative in his thought but reproduced the traditional teaching of the Church. The Holy Father Benedict XVI calls this intellectual humility, which Gregory thought was primary to being able to understand theology, and that beginning from Holy Scripture. Only what is deeply understood by the Christian can then reach the ear of those he is preaching to, and Gregory thought all Christians should be preachers. Gregory emphasised the moral sense of Scripture - bringing action forth from the understanding of the written word. He left a strong record on ecumenical relations between the various churches, coining the term 'servant of the servants of God,' the touchstone of episcopal humility, which the popes still use as a title. And that's a good place to end this essay.
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