St. Gregory of Nyssa

Gregory was born around 335 at Caesarea in Cappadocia, into a family that gave more saints to the Church than perhaps any other: his grandmother Macrina the Elder, his parents Basil and Emmelia, his elder brother Basil the Great, his sister Macrina the Younger, and his brother Peter of Sebaste are all numbered among the saints. He was the youngest of the brothers, and in his early life leaned toward the career of a rhetorician rather than the service of the Church.

Drawn back to the things of God by the example of his sister Macrina and the urging of his brother Basil, he was eventually ordained, and around the year 372 Basil consecrated him bishop of the small town of Nyssa, needing a trustworthy ally in the struggle against the Arians. Gregory was no administrator, Basil himself complained of his brother's unworldliness, and the Arian party soon contrived his deposition and exile.

He returned in triumph at the death of the Arian emperor Valens, and after the repose of Basil he came into his own as a theologian of the first rank. At the Second Ecumenical Council in Constantinople in 381 he was a leading defender of the divinity of the Holy Spirit, and the council named him a touchstone of orthodoxy for the churches of Pontus.

His writings, the great catechetical oration, the treatise on the soul and the resurrection composed as a dialogue with the dying Macrina, the Life of Moses, the homilies on the Song of Songs, and his works against Eunomius, explore the endless ascent of the soul toward a God who can never be exhausted. He reposed around 395, and the Church honors him on the tenth of January among the great Fathers and teachers of the Cappadocian age.