The Great

Today, the Church commemorates Pope Saint Gregory the Great, who was Pope from September 3, 590, until his death on March 12, 604. He is one of only two Popes officially entitled "the Great" - the other being Pope Saint Leo the Great, who was Pope from 440 to 461. He is also one of the four great Latin Doctors of the Church - along with Saint Ambrose (c.340-397), Saint Jerome (c.343-420), and Saint Augustine (354-430).

Gregory was born into a wealthy noble Roman family. His father was a patrician, a senator, and prefect of the city, which last post Gregory himself also held as a young man. After his father's death, he converted his family home into a monastery and became a monk there himself. His monastic life was interrupted when for several years he served as the Pope's Ambassador to the Emperor in Constantinople and then was permanently interrupted when he was elected Pope himself. He was the first pope to adopt the title "Servant of the Servants of God." To improve social services in the city, he organized the resources of the Church introducing an early form of basic accounting. In his liturgical reforms, he famously moved the Our Father to its present position right after the Eucharistic Prayer. The Church's official form of chant also bears his name. He wrote extensively. Many of his sermons and over 850 of his letters survive.

Gregory had a strong a strong missionary commitment and is credited with re-energizing the Church's missionary work among the non-Christian peoples of northern Europe. He is most famous for sending Saint Augustine, who had succeeded him in charge of his Roman monastery, to evangelize the Anglo-Saxons, who had conquered much of what is now England. Roman Britain had, of course, had a Christian community, based in London, but that older Roman British Celtic Christianity was by then largely confined to the west (Wales).   It was from there that Saint Patrick had earlier emerged to evangelize Ireland. But it was Gregory who undertook the evangelization of Anglo-Saxon England, sending Saint Augustine who established his See at Canterbury. 

Gregory wrote to Augustine:   "Almighty God places good men in authority that he may impart through them the gifts of his mercy to their subjects. And this we find to be the case with the British over whom you have been appointed, that through the blessings bestowed on you the blessings of heaven might be bestowed on your people also." Gregory's outreach to England was so successful that English missionaries also in turn evangelized much of what is now Germany. Ultimately, the Church in the English-speaking world is his great legacy, as the English-speaking world has been the beneficiary of Gregory the Great's outward-looking missionary zeal.

Homily for the Commemoration of Pope Saint Gregory the Great, Saint Paul the Apostle Church, NY, September 3, 2026.

Photo: Altar of Saint Gregory the Great in Saint Peter's Basilica, Rome, where Saint Gregory is buried.