Saint Gregory of Nyssa Episcopal Church

Mystic, theologian, humanist—St. Gregory Nyssen with his vision of human life in relationship to God informs our lives together. Gregory saw life as unending progress of discovering what God is doing in human life and sin as refusal to keep on growing in this discovery, for “the one thing truly worthwhile is becoming God’s friend.” Deep delight in human life and great optimism suffuses his writings.

Born c. 325 into a wealthy Christian family in Cappodocia (what is now central Turkey) just after the final Roman persecutions of Christians, Gregory become a Christian only in his early twenties, and reluctantly agreed to become Bishop of Nyssa at the urging of his brother Basil. The two of them, along with their friends the poet-theologian Gregory of Nazianzus and John Chrystostom, Patriarch of Constantinople, are considered four great Cappodocian fathers of the church.

Macrina, Gregory and Basil’s sister, gathered a community of religious women at the family estate at Annesi. Basil took her community as a model for all Christian monastic life, East and West. Gregory’s description of his visit to Macrina at the end of her life is among the most moving of his writings.

Robert Payne has written an excellent description of Gregory’s life and thought in his book Holy Fire (St. Vladimir Seminary Press).

Gregory’s final work, the Life of Moses, his great mystical reflection on Moses, is widely available, as are many of his other writings. Gregory continued to influence western Christianity, even though the ability to read his original Greek was no longer widespread, through the work of medieval translators and theologians such as Eriugena.

“So we say to God: Give us bread. Not delicacies or riches, nor magnificent purple robes, golden ornaments, and precious stones, or silver dishes. Nor do we ask Him for landed estates, or military commands, or political leadership. We pray neither for herds of horses and oxen or other cattle in great numbers, nor for a host of slaves. We do not say, give us a prominent position in assemblies or monuments and statues raised to us, nor silken robes and musicians at meals, nor any other thing by which the soul is estranged from the thought of God and higher things; no—but only bread! . . .

“But you go on business to the Indies and venture out upon strange seas; you go on a voyage every year only to bring back flavourings for your food, without realizing that . . . [it] is above all a good conscience which makes the bread tasty because it is eaten in justice. . .

“‘Give Thou bread’—that is to say, let me have food through just labor. For, if God is justice, anyone who procures food for themselves through covetousness cannot have his bread from God. You are the master of your prayer if your abundance does not come from another’s property and is not the result of somebody else’s tears; if no one is hungry or distressed because you are fully satisfied. For the bread of God is, above all, the fruit of justice.”