The Living Tradition An Orthodox Archive of the Church Fathers and Early Church

Canonised Father of the Church

Gregory the Theologian

Also known as Gregory of Nazianzus; Gregory Nazianzen

One of only three figures the Orthodox Church calls the Theologian, whose five orations on the Trinity settled how the Church would speak of God, and who resigned the see of Constantinople rather than prolong a quarrel.

  • Received Orthodox teachingTaught consistently and received throughout the Orthodox Church, though not necessarily formulated in a conciliar definition. This is not a claim that no Father ever wrote differently.
  • Dogmatic definitionDefined by an ecumenical council or otherwise confessed by the Church as binding doctrine. Not every sentence a council wrote is a definition: its acts, letters and disciplinary canons are different things.
  • Liturgical witnessAttested in the Church's worship — in a hymn, a prayer, a rite or a commemoration. Liturgical language is theological rather than casual, but a hymn is not a canon.
  • Historical consensusBroadly agreed among historians working from the surviving evidence. Consensus can shift when the evidence or the method changes.

Primary evidence verified Content last reviewed 2026-08-29

What still needs checking (2)
  • Archive Orations 28, 30 and 31 to complete the Theological Orations.
  • Confirm the commemoration dates against an official Orthodox source.

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Dates
around 329 - around 390 — Both dates approximate.
Region
Cappadocia; briefly Constantinople
See
Nazianzus; briefly Constantinople
Language of composition
Greek
Commemoration
25 January, and 30 January with the Three Hierarchs (Orthodox Church in America and other Orthodox jurisdictions) — Julian-calendar jurisdictions observe these dates thirteen days later on the civil calendar.

Life

Gregory was a reluctant bishop who wanted to be a monk and kept being made responsible for things. His father, also Gregory, was bishop of Nazianzus; his friend Basil made him bishop of an insignificant town for reasons of ecclesiastical politics, which he resented for years.

In 379 he went to Constantinople, where the Nicene party held a single small chapel, and preached the five orations that gave him his title. Within two years the city was Nicene and he was its bishop. At the Council of Constantinople in 381 his election was challenged; rather than let the council fracture over him, he resigned and went home.

His autobiographical poetry is unusually frank about disappointment, exhaustion and the behaviour of bishops. It is not the voice of a man performing sanctity.

Works

Generally accepted as authentic

Theological and spiritual contribution

The Theological Orations do two things at once. They set out the Trinitarian faith with great precision, and they argue about who may do theology at all: not everyone, not always, and not in front of any audience. The first oration is a sustained argument that theology requires a purified life and is not a spectator sport.

Gregory also gave the Church the principle that governs the whole logic of the incarnation: what has not been assumed has not been healed. If Christ did not take a human mind, then the human mind is not saved — which is the argument that eventually settles the question of Christ's human will at the Sixth Council, three centuries later.

He is one of three saints the Orthodox Church calls the Theologian, with the Apostle John and Symeon the New Theologian. The title is not a description of academic competence; it means one who speaks of God from communion with God.

  • Basil the Great

    Bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, organiser of monastic life and of the Church's care for the poor, and the theologian whose work on the Holy Spirit made the Council of Constantinople possible.

    Father or writer

  • Gregory of Nyssa

    Basil's younger brother, the most speculative of the Cappadocians, whose account of the soul's endless progress into God shaped Orthodox mystical theology.

    Father or writer

  • The First Council of Constantinople

    The council that confessed the divinity of the Holy Spirit and gave the Church the Creed it recites today. It was not ecumenical when it met; the Church made it so by receiving it.

    Council

  • The Holy Trinity

    One God in three persons: how the Church came to say it, and why the words were fought over.

    Theme

  • The Creed and the Holy Trinity

    What the Church confesses about God, where the words came from, and why they were fought over.

    Lesson

Your notes

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Sources for this page

  1. Tier C Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory Nazianzen Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds.) Oration 27 (First Theological Oration) translated edition of primary texts On who may speak of God. Source record
  2. Tier C Cyril of Jerusalem and Gregory Nazianzen Philip Schaff and Henry Wace (eds.) Oration 29 (Third Theological Oration) translated edition of primary texts On the Son. Source record

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