GREGORIO di CASSANO, saint. - Basilian monk of the 10th century, born at Cassano allo Ionio about 930, he took the monastic habit in the monastery of S. Andrea di Cerchiara, then governed by s. Pacomio, whom he succeeded in 960. Having escaped a Saracen raid, in order to avoid being taken to Constantinople he went to Rome, where he founded the monastery of S. Salvatore, splendidly endowed by the empress Teofano, who, about 990, persuaded him to follow her to Germany. There he founded the Greek monastery of SS. Apollinare e Nicola, at Burdschield, near Aquisgrana, which became a centre of Byzantine influence for the whole of Germany. There he died in 1002.
BIBL.: The life of s. G. is known only from Latin sources. It exists in a double recension in two Vienna codices: the shorter, incomplete one is the older, whereas the longer, more recent one echoes the legends concerning the royal origins of s. G. and his kinship with Teofano. Both recensions were published by O. Holder-Egger, in MGH, Scriptores, XV, pp. 1185-99, and in Acta SS. Novembris, 2 (1894), pp. 469-77. Cf. F. Russo, Sulla Vita Gregorii Abbatis, in Boll. d. Badia greca di Grottaferrata, nuova serie, 2 (1948), pp. 192-205. Francesco Russo