GREGORIO L'ILLUMINATORE, saint. – Born presumably around 250–252 into a noble Arsacid family, and therefore also called Partheu (Parthian).
His father Anak, one of the principal satraps, induced by the Sassanids of Persia (probably by the successor of Artašir, Sapor I [242–72/73]), killed Cosroe I, king of Armenia and the only surviving Arsacid, and was in turn massacred, together with his family, by the faithful followers of Cosroe I while fleeing toward Persia. Only one child, saved by his nurse and later baptized, survived; he was named G.
Already an adult, G. found himself, in the retinue of King Tiridate, before the area of the goddess Anahit. Since he refused to worship the idol, he was subjected to multiple tortures; then, taken toward the province of Ararat, he was thrown into a prison-pit called Khorvirap, near Artašat, to become food for vipers. An edict condemned all followers of Christianity (Agatangelo, XII, p. 106 ff.). Tiridate was subsequently struck by a serious illness. His sister Khosrovidukht saw in a dream that the king would recover only through the intervention of G., who, fifteen years after the edict, was still languishing in prison. Once freed, G. healed the monarch in body and soul and converted his court. An edict proscribed G.’s faith throughout Armenia (295–300: Sozomeno, Hist. eccl., II, 8). Pressed by the appeals of the court and the people, G. was taken with great pomp to Caesarea in Cappadocia, where he was ordained priest and bishop by the exarch Leonzio, and hence metropolitan of Armenia. This occurred in the summer of 302, or perhaps earlier, around 295 (cf. F. Tournebize, V. BIBLICA.). On his return, accompanied by a host of clerics gathered from Sebaste and various cities of Lesser Armenia, G. entered the province of Taron and, in the waters of the Euphrates, baptized the King, the court, and many thousands of citizens. On the remains of the pagan center of Aštišat, west of the present-day city of Muš, he built the first cathedral (Majr Țekelētsi = “mother church”) of Armenia, which until the fifth century was the seat of the katholikói.
The five years of activity of St. G., precisely when the last persecution was raging throughout the Roman Empire, may be summed up in the destruction of pagan temples and idols and the erection of churches, in which he was assisted by the military force of King Tiridate. G. organized the entire Armenian Church. The historian Agatangelo mentions the ordination of no fewer than 400 bishops (!), an exaggerated figure, since in later periods the known sees, also attested by national synods, number no more than 30–40. All the churches were endowed with ecclesiastical benefices, consisting of four fields for those in villages and seven buildings for those in cities. The see of the katholikós received fifteen rich cantons in various provinces of Armenia, among which Aštišat was the principal. Later documents worthy of credence speak of this endowment made by the King.
The date of St. G.’s death is unknown. He was still alive during the Council of Nicaea (325), but was represented at the Synod by St. Aristakes, his son. G.’s final years were spent in solitude among the Sepuh mountains. The relics, jealously guarded, were later partially transferred to Constantinople. In Armenia the right hand always remained, later becoming a symbol of patriarchal jurisdiction. In Naples, in the church of S. Gregorio armeno, the skull is preserved and is greatly venerated by the Armenians. Gregorio XVI entered G.’s name in the Roman martyrology, assigning his feast to 1 October; however, he appears there on 30 September, as in the Sinassari and Byzantine Menologi.