Pope of the church in Rome for fourteen years from 590-604, during some of the most difficult times faced by the city in her history, Gregory was a capable administrator, and was responsible for a series of important reforms that swept the church of much of its corruption and turned the Church's attention to the poor, but was also instrumental in commissioning St Augustine to lead an unprecedented mission of fourty missionaries to evangelize the British Isles, which was then largely pagan. Respected both in the East and the West, he was also a well-known for his his writings that earned him the epithet, 'the Great.' Also known as the last of the four great 'Latin Fathers,' Gregory is best remembered for his pastoral heart and spirituality; he has left behind one of the most important books on the subject then or since; it's called The Book of Pastoral Rule. John Calvin calls him "the last good pope."
Gregory was born into an aristocratic Italian family whose members had always had close relationships with the Church. His great grand-father was a pope, Pope Felix III (r. 483-492), while Pope Agpetus (r. 535-6) was probably also a relative. But life in Rome in his youth was difficult. Rome had lost its former grandeaur; it looked to Constantinople for leadership, and the administration was essentially defunct. His family, however, enabled Gregory an elite education. His first important career accomplishment saw him appointed the city prefect, the highest legal office in the city's administration, in 573. He resigned a year later to become a Benedictine monk. When his father died, he inherited a vast fortune, which he partly sold to give away to the poor. The extensive estate in the Caelian Hills he turned into a monastary (St Andrew's Monastary) where he lived as a simple monk given to the contemplative life. This was probably the four happiest years of his life.
578 changed all that for Gregory. First, the Lombards invaded Italy. He was called out of his contemplative life and appointed the next year a deacon by Pope Pelagius II and sent as ambassador to Constantinople to seek help against the Lombards. He returned to Rome and St Andrew's four years later. When Pelagius died in 590, Gregory was elected his successor, an office he assumed against his will (he even appealed to the emperor to have his election vetoed). Once convinced that it was God's calling for him, however, he took up the task with strenuous devotion and commitment. Given the general indifference of the Roman emperor towards the West in general, and Rome in particular, Gregory worked with extremely strained resources and limited authority. Though he demanded accountability from those under him, most of his reforms, though needed, had little lasting values. Except perhaps for the mission to the British Isles; his appointee as leader of the mission, Augustine, made great strides in bringing this then remote former Roman colony to the Christian faith. Gregory's greatest contribution to the Church, however, was his writings—Moralia on Job, Homilies on the Gospel, Homilies on Ezekiel, some 900 letters— and particularly his Book of Pastoral Rule, a book of great wisdom and sensitivity to the human person. Of it Andrew Purves says, "In the history of the church, Gregory's is the most widely read book, after the Bible, on pastoral care" (Pastoral Care in the Classical Tradition, 66).
BIBLIOGRAPHY:
Donald M. Lewis, "What Can We Learn about Pastoring from a Sixth-Century Pope?" Crux 55.1 (Spring 219):2-12.
George Demacopoulos, Gregory the Great: Ascetic, Pastor, and First Man of Rome. Notre Dame: Notre Dame University Press, 2015.
George Demacopoulos, trans., St. Gregory the Great: Book of Pastoral Rule. Chrestwood, NT: St Vladimir's Seminary Press, 2017.
R. A. Markus, Gregory the Great and His World. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Thomas Oden, Care of Souls in the Classic Tradition. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984.
Andrew Purves, Pastoral Theology in the Classical Tradition. Louisville: John Knox, 2001.
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