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The popes · No. 64 of 267

St Gregory I (the Great)

A monk who did not want the job, a city dying of plague, and a mission to the end of the world.

Pope 590 to 604

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A medieval manuscript page: Pope Gregory writes at a desk while the Holy Spirit, as a dove, speaks into his ear.

A medieval manuscript: a later artist’s imagining. British Library. Wikimedia Commons, CC0.

Home / The popes / St Gregory I (the Great)

Rome, AD 590

Plague is killing Rome, and it has just killed the pope.1

The people choose a monk named Gregory, who calls the whole city out into the streets to pray.1

Gregory had given away a fortune to become a monk. Now he was handed a collapsing city.

01St Gregory I (the Great)

A sevenfold procession

Gregory called the people to join a sevenfold procession, starting from the seven regions of the city and meeting at the Basilica of the Blessed Virgin, praying for the plague to end.1

ImagineThe whole city on the move at once, seven columns of people walking and praying through streets emptied by sickness, all converging on one church.

02St Gregory I (the Great)

Not Angles, but angels

Years before, Gregory met some Angles in Rome and was so moved that he set out himself as a missionary to Britain, until he was called back.1

As pope he sent the monk Augustine and his companions to the English.1

The Church honours him as a Doctor of the Church.1

The Catechism still follows him when it names the capital sins.2

Five hundred years later, an emperor would stand barefoot in the snow outside a pope’s door.

Notes

  1. Catholic Encyclopedia (1913), “St. Gregory the Great”. New Advent edition. newadvent.org
  2. Catechism of the Catholic Church, paragraph 1866. vatican.va

The Catholic Encyclopedia (1913) is in the public domain; we quote the New Advent edition. Texts of the Holy See are quoted briefly from vatican.va. Scripture: Douay-Rheims, Challoner revision (public domain). Photographs: Wikimedia Commons, credited under each image; full list on the photo credits page.

Lines in the narrator’s voice, without a note, are our reflection, not a historical claim. Stone & Incense restates Church teaching in plain words; our wording is not an official Church text. Report an error.