St. Gregory the Great

On September 3 the Church honors Pope Gregory I (c. 540-604), one of the four Latin Doctors of the Church and one of only three popes to have been given the title "the Great." Born to a noble Roman senatorial family on the Caelian Hill, the son of the prefect of Rome and of St. Silvia, Gregory served as prefect of the city himself around 573 — the highest civil office in Rome — before he renounced it, converted his family villa on the Caelian into the Monastery of St. Andrew, and became a monk. He was elected pope on September 3, 590, by acclamation; his pontificate lasted until his death on March 12, 604.

Gregory's pontificate reshaped the medieval Church. He sent the mission to England under Augustine of Canterbury in 597 — Augustine, the prior of Gregory's own monastery, went to Canterbury and became the first Archbishop of the English. Gregory is the remote founder of English Christianity; his mission reached the pagan Anglo-Saxons through Canterbury and, through Paulinus of York, the north. He reformed the Roman liturgy — placing the Lord's Prayer after the Roman Canon, establishing the nine Kyries, forbidding deacons from singing non-Gospel parts of Mass — and is remembered as the "Father of Christian Worship." The name "Gregorian chant" is traditional, though the surviving corpus postdates him. He wrote the Dialogues, the Moralia in Job, and the Regula Pastoralis, the pastoral manual that guided bishops for a thousand years.

His relics are enshrined in St. Peter's Basilica at Rome, in a tomb above the confessio. The family villa on the Caelian Hill, which he turned into the Monastery of St. Andrew, was later rededicated as the church of San Gregorio Magno al Celio, rebuilt in the 17th-18th centuries, with its three oratories including the Oratory of St. Silvia — said to lie over the tomb of Gregory's mother. Pilgrims visiting London and the ancient English sees trace a line from Gregory's mission to the founding of English Christianity.

Gregory was canonized by popular acclaim immediately after his death. He is the patron of musicians, singers, teachers, and students. The Eastern Churches commemorate him on March 12, the date of his death; the Latin Church moved the feast to September 3, the date of his episcopal consecration as pope, in the 1969 calendar reform.