Portal:Catholicism/Patron Archive/September 3 2007

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| Pope Saint Gregory I or Gregory the Great (c. 540 – March 12, 604) was pope from September 3, 590 until his death. Gregory is a Doctor of the Church and one of the four great Latin Fathers of the Church.

The date of Gregory's birth is estimated to be around the year 540. He was born into a wealthy noble Roman family. Gregory's great-great grandfather had been Pope Felix III. Gregory's mother Silvia herself is a saint. While his father lived, Gregory took part in Roman political life and at one point was prefect of the city. However, on his father's death, he converted his family home, into a monastery dedicated to the apostle, St. Andrew. Gregory himself entered as a monk.

Eventually, Pope Pelagius II ordained him a deacon and solicited his help in trying to heal the schism of the Three Chapters in northern Italy. In 579, Pelagius chose Gregory as his apocrisiarius or ambassador to the imperial court in Constantinople. On his return to Rome Gregory acted as first secretary to Pelagius, and was elected Pope to succeed him.

When he became Pope in 590. At that time the See had not exerted effective leadership in the West since the pontificate of Gelasius.

Gregory's action in appointing governors to cities, providing munitions of war, giving instructions to generals, sending ambassadors to the Lombard king, and even negotiating a peace without consulting the Emperor's legate, Romanus, Exarch of Ravenna, mark the decisive acts that revealed the papacy as an independent temporal power.

In line with his predecessors, Gregory asserted the primacy of the office of the bishop of Rome.

Gregory's relations with the Merovingian kings laid the foundations for the papal alliance with the Franks that would transform the Germanic kingship into an agency for the Christianization of the heart of Europe — consequences that remained in the future. He is also known in the East as a tireless worker for communication and understanding between East and West. He is also credited with increasing the power of the papacy.

Attributes: in full pontifical robes with the tiara, a dove whispering in Gregory's ear
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