LIFE OF ST. GREGORY OF ACRITAS.
From the Greek Menaea.
Around the year of Christ 820.
CommentaryGregory, monk of Acritas in Greece (S.)
From the Greek Menaea.
[1] Unknown to Latin calendars, he is thus celebrated in the Greek Menaea: He was born on the most noble island of Crete, of most devout parents Theophanes and Juliana. The homeland and parents of St. Gregory. He tends flocks. After he had spent no small time in the study of letters, he was ordered by his parents to tend the flocks; but he, already long since inflamed with heavenly desire, left his homeland, He leaves his homeland. betook himself to Seleucia, and there for no short time sustained his life on a little bread and water. In his twenty-sixth year (at the time when the Emperor Leo, the enemy and destroyer of sacred images, ended his life, and the Catholic religion recovered and was restored to its freedom), he set out for Jerusalem, He goes to Jerusalem. and after venerating the holy places with immense devotion, the many and grievous things he suffered during twelve full years, both from the Saracens and from the Jews, He suffers much. cannot be committed to writing by one who pursues only summaries and brevity.
[2] Departing from there, he then betook himself to Constantinople, where, having taken the Angelic habit, he subdued his poor body with abstinence and fasting. After Stauracius was deposed and Michael held the empire, He becomes a monk. and St. Nicephorus directed the governance of the Church, Michael the Confessor, Bishop of Synada, was sent to Rome to the most holy Pontiff. He, having conversed with Blessed Gregory at Constantinople, upon his return from Rome brought him with him to the most holy monastery which is at Acritas, and joined him there to the religious community; where, content with a single tunic, without shoes, he took his sleep upon a mat woven of rushes, and after two or three days tasted -- or rather merely sampled -- He lives most austerely. a little bread and water.
[3] Then he descended into a very deep pit, and there for a long time with many tears he bewailed the troubled and pitiable state of the Churches. Emerging from it again, he enclosed himself in a very narrow cell, covered with a single skin; he filled a barrel that stood in the garden with water, At night he stands in water reciting the Psalter. and at night, having cast off his tunic, he entered it and there recited the Psalter, and then came out again; and this he did throughout his whole life. And when he had thus nobly contended for eternal life, he commended his soul into the hands of the Lord.
NOTE.
Several cities of this name may be read in Ortelius, Ptolemy, and others. This seems to be either the one called Seleucia Aspera, a metropolitan city in Cilicia Aspera, under the Patriarch of Antioch; or Seleucia of Pisidia in Pamphylia, itself also a metropolis, though without any suffragan, formerly subject to the Patriarch of Antioch, then to the Patriarch of Constantinople. I believe that Seleucia Pieria was then in the power of the Saracens, along with neighboring Antioch. Leo IV, the son of Copronymus, died in the year of Christ 780, and the empire was assumed by his son Constantine with his mother Irene, a most pious woman. Thus the religious habit is called. So John Moschus in the Spiritual Meadow, chapter 94: Do you not know, brother, that you bear the Angelic habit? Our Rosweyde explains the rite of its conferral from the Greek Euchologion in the Onomasticon to the Lives of the Fathers, under the word Schema. Stauracius, chosen as co-Emperor by his father Nicephorus in the year 803, was then in the year 811, in a battle against the Bulgars in which Nicephorus perished, severely wounded and stripped of the Empire by the nobles, with Michael Curopalates substituted. Michael held the Empire from October 5, 811 until July 813. He was a Catholic and most pious Emperor, father of St. Ignatius the Patriarch. We shall give the deeds of St. Nicephorus, Patriarch of Constantinople, on March 13. The feast of St. Michael the Confessor is celebrated on May 23. Baronius treats of this embassy in Volume 9 of the Annals at the year 811, numbers 18 and following; but he incorrectly calls Michael the Bishop of Sinnaculorum, when he was Bishop of Synnada or Synnadon. Through him, St. Nicephorus the Patriarch sent letters to Pope Leo III about his election, a profession of his faith, and gifts. Those letters survive in Baronius at the cited place, in which the Patriarch calls Michael the most holy Metropolitan of Sinnaculorum (rather, Synnadon), a city beloved of Christ. Then he adds the following about him: He is disposed toward your Charity with a very ardent and sincere love, and shows himself zealous and eager in ecclesiastical affairs, just as he excels others in speech, conduct, and virtue. He does not mention exile or hardships endured for the faith. Wherefore the fact that he is here called Confessor in the Menaea seems to refer to what he suffered shortly afterward under Leo the Armenian. For what is said in the Menologion on May 23, that because he refuted the heresy of Leo the Isaurian he was sent into exile, is to be understood of the heresy propagated by his successors; or "Isaurian" is used instead of "Armenian." This gave Baronius occasion to write at the year 733, number 2, that Michael was driven into exile by the Isaurian at that time; which in fact happened only in the year 814, as the same Baronius writes at that year, number 32, although he there substitutes Sinnaculorum for Synnadon. But to whom is Sinnacula known as a metropolis? There is a celebrated mention of this same Michael of Synnada in the Second Council of Nicaea, or the Seventh Ecumenical Council, which was held in the year of Christ 787. We shall say more about him in his proper place. Synnada or Synada is a metropolitan city of Phrygia Salutaris, as can be seen in the Notice of Bishoprics by Aubertus Miraeus. It is called Synnas by some Latin writers. This was Leo III, who was made Pope on December 26 in the year 795, and died on June 12 in the year 816. There is an Acritas in Ptolemy (Table 1 of Asia), a promontory of Bithynia at the entrance to the Propontis. I believe the monastery to which Bishop Michael brought St. Gregory on his return to Phrygia was located there; and I believe it is the same monastery whose Hegumenus or Provost Sisinnius is found to have subscribed to the Seventh Ecumenical Council, or Nicaea II, in Act 4, although there he is called Ἡγούμενος Ἀρίτας, which in the Latin edition of the Councils is translated as Praeses Aretes. Especially under Leo the Armenian, at the end of whose reign, or the beginning of Michael the Stammerer (who was crowned Emperor on Christmas Day itself in the year 820), Gregory seems to have reached the end of his life.