Gregory of Nazianzus 329 AD – 389 AD

Gregory of Nazianzus, called the Theologian, was a fourth-century Cappadocian Father, archbishop of Constantinople, and one of the principal architects of Trinitarian orthodoxy. With Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, he shaped the doctrine of three persons in one substance ratified at the Council of Constantinople in 381. His Five Theological Orations, delivered at Constantinople, are masterpieces of patristic theology, while his autobiographical poem De Vita Sua is a remarkable record of a Christian intellectual life. He is one of only three figures in the Eastern Christian tradition known by the title the Theologian.

Gregory of Nazianzus was born in 329 at Arianzus, near the small Cappadocian town of Nazianzus, the son of Gregory the Elder, a former member of the Hypsistarian sect who had become a Christian and bishop of Nazianzus, and the formidable Nonna. He was educated at Caesarea, Alexandria, and at Athens, where in the late 340s he shared lodgings and study with Basil of Caesarea and with the future emperor Julian.

Reluctantly ordained priest by his father in 361, he served at Nazianzus, was consecrated bishop of the fictitious see of Sasima by Basil in 372 in a maneuver of ecclesiastical politics that he never forgave, and in 379 was called to lead the small Nicene community at Constantinople. There he delivered the Five Theological Orations that earned him the title 'the Theologian', presided briefly at the Council of Constantinople in 381, and resigned the see for the sake of peace. His writings include some 45 surviving orations, more than 240 letters, and a long body of devotional and autobiographical verse.

Gregory completed, with Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, the Cappadocian formulation of the Trinitarian doctrine that would carry the Council of Constantinople, and produced in his Theological Orations the most refined patristic treatment of the divinity of Son and Spirit. He retired to family lands and died at Arianzus in 389 or 390.