St Gregory, Bishop of Omirit (+c. 552)

Saint Gregory, Bishop of Omirit, was born in Mediolanum, into the family of the pious parents Agapius and Theodotia. From childhood the grace of the Holy Spirit rested upon him, and he had the gifts of healing and wonderworking. God’s providence was preparing the blessed one for the ministry of a hierarch. He was still serving as a deacon when his future work as a hierarch was foretold in his native city by the mouth of a hermit. Afterwards the words of the latter were confirmed by another God-inspired elder who laboured in the mountains. He told Saint Gregory that after venerating the tomb of Saints Boniface and Aglaida in Rome he was to go to Alexandria, receive the rank of bishop there, and strengthen the faith of Christ in the Ethiopian city of Negran. So that the saint should have no doubt of the truth of what was said, the elder revealed that he knew how the chiefs of the apostles, Peter and Paul, had appeared to Saint Gregory in a divine vision and clothed him in a hierarch’s omophorion.

Obeying the heavenly blessing, Gregory went to Rome. Here, at the tomb of Saints Boniface and Aglaida, the holy Apostle Peter appeared to him once more and charged him to help the Christians who were suffering for the Lord’s name in the city of Negran. At night, in a vision in his sleep, the Apostle Paul stood before the blessed one and handed him a cup full of oil, which was a foretelling of the descent of the grace of the episcopate upon him.

At that time the army of Elesbaan, King of Ethiopia (commemorated 24 October), freed Negran, the city of Omirit, from the yoke of the Jewish tyrant Dunaan. After this Christianity was restored there, but the whole church hierarchy had been destroyed by the Jewish conquerors. So Elesbaan sent envoys to the Patriarch of Alexandria and asked for a bishop and clergy for Negran. As the patriarch stood in prayer to learn God’s will, the Apostle Mark appeared to him and commanded him to seek out the deacon Gregory, to ordain him first priest and then bishop, and to send him to Elesbaan. And the patriarch did so. During the consecration a special grace came down upon Saint Gregory: his face shone with an unearthly light, and the fragrance of sweet-smelling incense poured forth from his vestments.

On arriving in Omirit, Gregory set about restoring the Christian places of worship and preaching the true faith among the pagans and the Jews. The hierarch crowned the new king, Abraham, who commanded all his subjects to be baptised. Then the Jewish nobles demanded that he hold a debate on questions of faith between them and the Christians, promising that if the followers of the Saviour won the debate the Jews too would be baptised. Forty days later the disputation began, and it went on for several days. Relying on the texts of the Old Testament, the hierarch Gregory refuted all the arguments of the elder of the Jews, Rabbi Herban. The rabbi saw in a vision how the Prophet Moses bowed down to the Lord Jesus Christ. By the grace of God the Christians were winning the debate, but Herban would by no means admit himself defeated and, in desperation, resorted to a last resource; he insolently hissed: “If you want me to believe in Christ with my heart and confess that your God is the true God, show Him to me, bishop!” The hierarch replied: “You ask a great deal: you are contending not with a man but with God Himself. But to strengthen faith among men the Lord can work a miracle!” The Orthodox waited in fear and boldness to see what would happen next. Full of firm faith and unshakeable hope, Saint Gregory began to pray aloud: he recalled the becoming man of God the Son, the miracles He worked during His earthly life, His Resurrection and Ascension, and called on the power of the life-giving Cross for help.

When the hierarch had finished his prayer, the earth suddenly shook, the sky opened in the east, and the Lord Jesus Christ appeared in a cloud of light, and a voice rang out: “Through the prayers of Bishop Gregory, He whom your fathers crucified will heal you!”

Like Saul on his way to Damascus, the Jews were robbed of their sight by the unearthly light. Blinded, they asked the holy bishop for help, after which they received holy baptism and were all healed. At his baptism Rabbi Herban was named Leo.

After this great miracle the hierarch Gregory governed his flock for more than thirty years. He reposed in peace in 552.