March 23: Gregory the Illuminator, Bishop and Missionary, c. 332

The Collect of the Day

Gregory the Illuminator

Almighty God, who raised up your servant Gregory to be a light in the world, and to preach the Gospel to the people of Armenia: Illuminate our hearts, that we also in our own generation may show forth your praise, who called us out of darkness and into your marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Gregory the Illuminator

Almighty God, who didst raise up thy servant Gregory to be a light in the world, and to preach the Gospel to the people of Armenia: Illuminate our hearts, that we also in our own generation may show forth thy praise, who hast called us out of darkness and into thy marvelous light; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Ghost, one God, now and for ever. Amen.

Acts 17:22–31
Psalm 33:6–11
Mark 2:18–22

Armenia is traditionally regarded as the first kingdom to become of officially Christian, and this set a precedent for the legalization of Christianity by the Emperor Constantine. As a buffer state between the more powerful empires of Rome and Persia, Armenia endured many shifts of policy, as first one and then the other empire took it “under protection.” Armenia’s conversion was actually preceded by those of two other small buffer kingdoms between Persia and Rome: Adiabene and Osroene. However, by the third century neither of these kingdoms existed as a self-governing entity.

The accounts of Gregory, known as the Illuminator (or Enlightener) and as “Apostle of the Armenians,” are a mixture of legend and fact. He was born about 257. After his father assassinated the PersianKing Chosroes I, the infant boy was rescued and taken to Caesareain Cappadocia, where he was brought up as a Christian. He married a woman named Mary, who bore him two sons. About 280, he returned to Armenia and, after experiencing various fortunes of honor and imprisonment, succeeded in converting King Tiridates to his faith. With the help of the king the country was Christianized, and paganism was rooted out. About 300, Gregory was ordained a bishop at Caesarea. He established his cathedral at Valarshapat, with his center of work nearby at Echmiadzin, which is still the spiritual center of Armenian Christianity.

There is no record that Gregory attended the First Ecumenical Council at Nicaea in 325, but a tradition records that he sent in his stead his younger son Aristages, whom he ordained as his successor. His last years were spent in solitude, and he died about 332.

Lessons and Psalm

First Lesson

Psalm

⁶By the word of the Lord were the heavens made, *by the breath of his mouth all the heavenly hosts.

⁷He gathers up the waters of the ocean as in a water-skin *and stores up the depths of the sea.

⁸Let all the earth fear the Lord; *let all who dwell in the world stand in awe of him.

⁹For he spoke, and it came to pass; *he commanded, and it stood fast.

¹⁰The Lord brings the will of the nations to naught; *he thwarts the designs of the peoples.

¹¹But the Lord’s will stands fast for ever, *and the designs of his heart from age to age.

Gospel

²²Then Paul stood in front of the Areopagus and said, “Athenians, I see how extremely religious you are in every way. ²³For as I went through the city and looked carefully at the objects of your worship, I found among them an altar with the inscription, ‘To an unknown god.’ What therefore you worship as unknown, this I proclaim to you. ²⁴The God who made the world and everything in it, he who is Lord of heaven and earth, does not live in shrines made by human hands, ²⁵nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mortals life and breath and all things. ²⁶From one ancestor he made all nations to inhabit the whole earth, and he allotted the times of their existence and the boundaries of the places where they would live, ²⁷so that they would search for God and perhaps grope for him and find him—though indeed he is not far from each one of us. ²⁸For ‘In him we live and move and have our being’; as even some of your own poets have said, ‘For we too are his offspring.’ ²⁹Since we are God’s offspring, we ought not to think that the deity is like gold, or silver, or stone, an image formed by the art and imagination of mortals. ³⁰While God has overlooked the times of human ignorance, now he commands all people everywhere to repent, ³¹because he has fixed a day on which he will have the world judged in righteousness by a man whom he has appointed, and of this he has given assurance to all by raising him from the dead.”