This is the first time I am highlighting the life of St Gregory of Narek, a saint venerated by the Armenian Orthodox, the Armenian Catholic and the Latin Catholic Churches. Gregory was canonized and recognized as a Doctor of the Church by Pope Francis in 2015.
Many don’t know the 10th century Armenian monk but he’s most known for his “Book of Lamentations”, the “Book of Prayers” of depth and scope; scholars will say it is timeless piece of Armenian literature. Gregory himself said this work was an “encyclopedia of prayer for all nations” and as his final testament, “Its letters like my body, its message like my soul.” The Armenian Church calls Gregory her greatest poet and mystic.
Here is a beautifully insightful video on St Gregory of Narek written and narrated by Robert Ervine, professor at the Armenian Seminary in New York.
While the Church has not yet established his patronage it is widely accepted that St Gregory of Narek is the patron saint who works against the diseases of the mind, including schizophrenia, stress symptoms, depression, Hepatitis C, and periodic unexplained disease of the body.
Let’s leave the final word today on Gregory with St John Paul II who wrote in a 2001 apostolic letter marking the 1,700th anniversary of Christianity in Armenia, praising St. Gregory of Narek as one who “probed the dark depths of human desperation and glimpsed the blazing light of grace that shines even there for believers.”
St Gregory of Narek, pray for us.