Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 11.djvu/191

Rh politics. He was a learned divine and manifested a reforming spirit ; and his pontificate was marked by the canonization of St Theresa, Francis Xavier, Ignatius Loyola, and Philip Neri. He died on the 18th of July 1623, and was succeeded by Urban VIII.

 GREGORYXVI. (Bartolommeo Alberto Cappellari), pope from 1831 to 1816, was born at Belluno on September 18, 1765, and at an early age entered the order of the Camaldoli, among whom he rapidly gained distinction for his theological and linguistic acquirements. His first appearance before a wider public was in 1799, when he published against the Italian Jansenists a con troversial work entitled Trionfo delta Santa Sede, which, besides passing through several editions in Italy, was translated into several European languages. In 1800 he became a member of the Academy of the Catholic Religion, founded by Pius VII., to which he contributed a number of memoirs on theological and philosophical questions. When Pius VII. was carried off from Rome in 1809, Cappellari withdrew to the monastery of San Michele at Murano, near Venice, and in 1814, with some other members of his order, he removed to Padua ; but soon after the restoration of the pope he was recalled to Rome, where he received successive appointments as vicar-general of the Camaldoli, councillor of the Inquisi tion, prefect of the Propaganda, and examiner of bishops. In March 1825 he was created cardinal by Leo XII., and shortly afterwards was entrusted with an important mission to adjust a concordat regarding the interests of the Catholics of Belgium and the Protestants of Holland. On the 2d February 1831 he was, after sixty-four days conclave, unexpectedly chosen to succeed Pius VIII. in the papal chair. The revolution of 1830 had just inflicted a severe blow on the ecclesiastical party in France, and it seemed as if similar disasters to the papal cause were imminent in other parts of Europe, when Gregory XVI. entered upon his fifteen years pontificate. Almost the first act of the new Government of France was to unfurl the tricolor at Ancona ; and the immediate effect was to throw all Italy, and particularly the Papal States, into a state of excitement such as seemed to call for strongly repressive measures. In the course of the struggle which ensued, the temporal reign of Gregory was marked accordingly by executions, banish ments, imprisonments, to an extent which makes it im possible for the candid reader to absolve him from the charges of cruelty and bigotry which were so frequently raised at the time. The embarrassed financial condition in which he left the States of the Church also makes it doubt ful how far his lavish expenditure in architectural and engineering works, and his magnificent patronage of learn ing in the hands of Mai, Mezzofanti, and others, were for the real benefit of his subjects. The years of his pontificate were marked by the steady development and diffusion of those ultramontane ideas which were ultimately formulated under the presidency of his successor Pius IX. by the council of the Vatican. He died 1st June 1846.

 GREGORY, undefined, (in Armenian Gregor Lusarovitch, in Greek Gregorios Phoster or Photistes), the founder and patron saint of the Armenian Church, was born about He belonged to the royal race of the Arsacides, being the son of a certain Prince Anak, who assassinated Chosroes of Armenia, and thus brought ruin on himself and his family. His mother s name was Okohe, and the Armenian biographers tell how the first Christian influence he received was at the time of his conception, which took place near the monument raised to the memory of the holy apostle Thaddeus. Educated by a Christian nobleman, Euthalius, in Cæsarea in Cappadocia, Gregory sought, when he came to man's estate, to introduce the Christian doctrine into his native land. At that time Tiridates I., a son of Chosroes, sat on the throne, and, influenced partly it may be by the fact that Gregory was the son of his father s enemy, he subjected him to much cruel usage, and imprisoned him for fourteen years. It would he useless to relate the various forms of torture which the orthodox accounts represent the saint to have endured with out permanent hurt ; almost any one of his twelve trials would have been certain death to an ordinary mortal. But vengeance and madness fell on the king, and at length Gregory was called forth from his pit to restore his royal persecutor to reason by virtue of his saintly intercession. The cause of Christianity was now secured; king and princes and people vied with each other in obedience to Gregory's instruction, and convents, churches, and schools were estab lished. Gregory in received consecration as patriarch of Armenia from Leontius of Cæsarea, and in he appointed his son Aristax to be his successor. About he withdrew to a cave in the mountain Sebuh in the pro vince of Daranalia in Upper Armenia, and there he died a few years afterwards unattended and unobserved. When it was discovered that he was dead his corpse was removed to the village of Thordanum or Thortan. The remains of the saint were scattered far and near in the reign of Zeno. His head is said to be now in Italy, his right hand at Etchmiadzin, and his left at Sis. It is almost impossible to get at Gregory's real personality through the tangled growth of ecclesiastical legend ; but he would appear to have possessed some of that consideration for expediency which is so frequently of service to the reformer. While he did his best to undermine their system, he left the pagan priests in enjoyment of their accustomed revenues.

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 GREGORY,, , surnamed , one of the four great fathers of the Eastern Church, was born about the year , at or near Nazianzus, Cappadocia. His father, also named Gregory, a convert from Hypsistarianism, had lately become bishop of the diocese ; his mother Nonna, an eminently pious woman, by whom he was dedicated to the service of God from his birth, appears to have exercised a powerful influence over the religious convictions of both father and son. In pursuit of a more liberal and extended culture than could be procured in the insignificant town of Nazianzus, Gregory visited successively the two Cæsareas, Alexandria, and Athens, as a student of grammar, mathematics, rhetoric, and philosophy ; at the last-named seat of learning, where he prolonged his stay until he had entered his thirtieth year, he enjoyed the society and friend ship of Basil, who afterwards became the famous bishop of Caesarea; the prince Julian, destined soon afterwards to play so prominent a part in the world s history, was also a fellow-student. Shortly after his return to his father s house at Nazianzus (about the year ) Gregory received baptism, and renewed his dedication to the service of religion ; he still continued, however, for some time, and indeed more or less throughout his whole life, in a state of hesitation as to the form which that service ought to take. Strongly inclined by nature and education to a contemplative life spent among books and in the society of congenial friends, he was yet continually urged by outward circumstances, 