ON ST. GREGORY, BISHOP OF CONSTANTIA IN CYPRUS.
CommentaryGregory, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus (St.)
[1] Constantia, the metropolis of Cyprus, the ancient city of the Salaminians, is celebrated for the episcopate of the great Epiphanius. Among its other Bishops, whom we believe flourished there in great numbers, distinguished in holiness and learning, St. Gregory is recorded, whose mention is found in four ancient Greek manuscripts written by hand for this day, March 5: namely the Parisian Synaxarion of the Jesuit College of Clermont, the Menaea of the Ambrosian Library at Milan, St. Gregory, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus. those of Cardinal Mazarin, and of Peter Francis Chifflet of the Society of Jesus; nor did we wish to search further those that are at Turin, Rome, and elsewhere. In these, nearly these words appear: Καὶ τοῦ ὁσίου Πατρὸς ἡμῶν Γρηγορίοῦ Ἐπισκόπου Κωνςαντίας τοῦ Κύπροῦ. And of our holy Father Gregory, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus. In the Menologion of Basil Porphyrogenitus, exactly the same appears with the word μνήμη, memorial, prefixed.
[2] The printed Menaea record him on the day before, that is, March 4, with these words: On the same day, St. Gregory of Cyprus fell asleep in peace; and these verses are added: whether recorded in the Menaea on March 4?
Ἔλαφοσ ὥσπερ ἐκ βρόχου ῥυσθεὶς βίου Ἄνεισι Γρηγόριος ἔνθα ζῶν ὕδωρ.
Like a deer freed from the snare of life, Gregory ascends to where the living water is.
His great abstinence in food and singular eagerness in divine worship are indicated by these words. All of which we believe can be understood of one and the same man, the Bishop of the Church of Constantia.
[3] If anyone in the printed Menaea should think that another Gregory, not a Bishop, is meant, we cannot oppose this. In Pelagius, book 4 of the Lives of the Fathers, booklet 1, number 3: St. Gregory said: "God requires three things from every person other anchorite Gregories. who has received baptism: right faith from the whole soul and strength, continence of the tongue, and chastity." And Theodoret in the Philotheos, chapter 5, knew a Gregory laboring in extreme old age as if he were in the flower of his youth, who persisted in perpetually refusing the fruit of the vine, and ate neither vinegar nor raisins, nor milk, neither fresh nor curdled. Certainly one of these or someone similar could be the one assigned in the printed Menaea.