Gregory (4)
Gregory
the patriarch of the Bonemian Brethren. Among the earnest-minded Hussites of the Calixtine party, which began, about 1453, to form around Rokycan, elected but never consecrated archbishop of Prague, and to listen with enthusiasm to his sermons on the necessity of a reformation, the most prominent was Gregory, surnamed “the Patriarch.” The time and place of his birth are unknown. He was the son of a Bohemian knight, and the nephew of Rokycan, whose sister was his mother. Disappointed in his uncle, who was not willing to be a reformer practically however much he theorized on the subject, he retired, with a number of his friends, to the barony of Lititz, and there founded in 1457 the Church of the Bohemian Brethren, or Unitas Fratrum. Accepting no ecclesiastical office in the same, he remained merely a lay elder, but was the life and soul of the organization. In its interests he wrote and published many letters, doctrinal treatises, and apologetic works, nearly all of which have perished. His doctrinal tendencies were derived mainly from Peter Chelcicky, a Bohemian writer, who inveighed with stern rigor, from out of an isolated retreat, against the corruptness of that age. (For particulars about Chelcicky, see Gillette’s article on the Taborites and the Germ of the Moravian Church, in the Presbyterian Review of July 1864.). In consequence, his views of Christian discipline grew to be extreme, and more than puritanical. These he impressed upon the Church. Some of their most salient points were the following men of rank must strip themselves of the same, and lay down every worldly office, before they can be received into the Church. no member is allowed to go to law, or to testify before a civil court; judicial oaths.are forbidden; no member may keep an inn, or engage in any trade calculated to advance luxury. His object was to preserve the Church unspotted from the world, amid the fearful degeneracy which prevailed. At the time of his death; which occurred in 1473, at Brandeis, on the Adler, in Bohemia, these and other similar regulations were in full force. Twenty-one years later, however, in 1494, they were formally abrogated, and a more liberal policy was introduced. In the first persecution (1461) which came upon the Brethren, Gregory was frightfully torturedon the rack. Palacky’s Geschichte ron. Bohmen, volume 6, chapter 7, which work denies that Gregory was the nephew of Rokycan; Gindely’s Geschichte der Bohmischen Bruder, volume 1, chapter 1-3 Crger’s Geschichte der alten Bruiderkirche, volume 1, chapter 3; Benham’s Notes on the Origin and Episcopate of the Bohemian Brethren, pages 1-120. (E. de S.)
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Gregory (1)
an Irish prelate, was elected to the see of Dublin, and went immediately to England, where he received his first orders as bishop, from Roger, bishop of Salisbury, September 24, 1121, and was consecrated in the following October. After he had presided thirty-one years over his see, the archiepiscopal dignity was conferred upon him, at the Council of Kells. He died October 8, 1161. See D’Alton, Memoirs of the Abps. of Dublin, page 41.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Gregory (2)
patriarch of Constantinople, was born at Calavrita (Arcadia) about 1740. He studied in the schools of Dimitzana, (Morea), Athos, Patmos, and Smyrna; entered the Church, and, after being successively ordained deacon and priest, was, while yet quite a young man, appointed metropolian of Smyrna. Most of the churches of the diocese were in ruins, and the Turks opposed their restoration, yet he succeeded in fitting some for divine worship, and endeared himself greatly to the Greek population by his zeal and virtues. In 1795 he was appointed patriarch of Constantinople. When the expedition of Napoleon I against Egypt.took place, the Turks accused Gregory of favoring the French, and deposed him. He withdrew to a convent on Mount Athos, where he busied himself not only in writing religious books, but in learning the art of printing. Being soon after reappointed patriarch, he established a printing-office in the episcopal palace. His duties were interrupted by the political revolutions of 1808, when he was deposed on a charge of favoring Russia. He had finally been reappointed a third time patriarch, when the invasion of the Danubian provinces by Ypsilanti in 1821 led to the rising of the Greeks. Constantinople was their t supposed aim, and it was rumored that the Greeks of that city would rise, murder the sultan, and restore the throne of Constantine. The Turkish soldiery were daily killing the Greeks in the streets of Constantinople, and the patriarch’s palace was pointed at as the arsenal where Christians kept their ammunition. The position of the Greek clergy, in view of this revolution, which announced itself as a religious one, became daily more critical. Gregory, following the traditions of his Church, which had always enjoined obedience to the temporal powers, excommunicated the leaders of the insurrection. He was entrusted with the custody of the Morousi family, the head of which had been killed and an insurgent. The priest to whose charge Gregory committed them allowed them to escape, and from that moment Gregory foresaw the fate which awaited helm. Pressed to fly by his friends, he refused to leave his post, and on Easter celebrated public worship with all the splendor and solemnity habitual on that occasion among Eastern Christmas He was arrested on leaving the church, throws into prison, and a few hours later hanged, in front of the church as an originator of the insurrection. The chief members of the snyod shared his fate, or were thrown into prison. After remaining on the gallows for three days the body of the patriarch was thrown into the sea by the Jews, but was taken out, put on board of a vessel, and sent to Odessa, where it was buried wih greatpomp, June 28. He compiled a Greek Lexicon, of which, however, only two volumes have appeared (Constantinople, 1819). See Constantin OEconomos, Orsaison funebre du. patriarche Gregoire; Pouqueville, Hist. de la Regeneration de la Grece. Hoefer, Nouv. Biog. Generale, 21:880 sq.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Gregory (2)
a Scotch prelate, was made bishop of Dunkeld in 1169. How long he sat is unknown. See Keith, Scottish Bishops, page 73.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Gregory (3)
a Scotch prelate, was bishop of Ross in 1161. He died in 1195. See Keith, Scottish Bishops, page 184.
Fuente: Cyclopedia of Biblical, Theological and Ecclesiastical Literature
Gregory (4)
a Scotch prelate, was bishop of Brechin in 1242. See Keith, Scottish Bishops, page 158.