GREGORIO DECAPOLITA, saint. — Monk, promoter of monastic life, thaumaturge, and defender of the cult of the sacred images; born at Irenopoli in Isauria around 780 and died at Constantinople on 20 November 842. During his many journeys he also came to the West: Reggio, Naples, Rome, Syracuse, Otranto.
He entered monastic life after fleeing his father’s house, who had already found him a bride. In the mountains of his homeland he suffered considerably at the hands of the monks who supported iconoclasm, and he withdrew to his uncle Simeone, igumen of another monastery of Isaurian Decapolis, where he remained for 14 years.
G. also stayed in other Eastern monasteries, especially in Thessalonica and Constantinople. One of his disciples was St. Giovanni the monk; St. Giuseppe l'Innografo was also morally influenced by him. During the iconoclastic struggle, G. sent St. Giuseppe to Rome to the Pope to request his support
against the heresy promoted by the emperors and patriarchs. But he was captured by the Saracens during his journey to Rome and was able to return to Constantinople only later, when G. had died. In honor of him, of the aforementioned monk St. Giovanni, and of St. Bartolomeo, he built a monastery and a church where the mortal remains of G. and of his disciple Giovanni were transferred beside the relics of St. Bartolomeo.
A discourse on the conversion of a Muslim is attributed to G. (PG 100, 1200 A–1212 D), but the authenticity of this opusculum is disputed. A life of G. written by the deacon Ignazio, author of the lives of the holy patriarchs Niceforo and Tarasio, also provides interesting contributions to certain Byzantine historical questions of the ninth century, especially concerning the Balkan Slavs and the spread of iconoclasm; a new critical edition of the Greek life of G., with an introduction, was produced by Dvornik, an authority in these matters; yet he overlooked the Messina manuscript already reported in 1884 by D. G. Lancia di Brolo
in his Storia della Chiesa in Sicilia (II, Palermo 1884, p. 295). This author also provides the valuable information that St. Giuseppe l'Innografo composed a poem (canon) in honor of G., published in the Menaia (II, Rome 1889, pp. 203 ff.). A hontahion, likewise by St. Giuseppe in honor of G., was published by E. Mioni, I hontahia inediti di s. Giuseppe innografo, in Bollettino della badia greca di Grottaferrata, nuova serie, 2 (1948), pp. 181–82.