Saint Gorgonia

Gorgonia is known almost entirely from the oration Gregory gave at her funeral. ¹² The translators date it after the death of Caesarius in 369 and before their father's in 374, and think it was delivered in the city where she had lived as a married woman, with her bishop, "the spiritual father and confidant of Gorgonia," present. ¹ The 1910 Catholic Encyclopedia says Gregory's life at Nazianzus in those years "was saddened by the deaths of his brother Caesarius and his sister Gorgonia, at whose funerals he preached two of his most eloquent orations." ⁴

Gregory knew the risk of praising his own sister and said so. His fear, he told the mourners, was "not of outrunning the truth, but, on the contrary, of falling short of it," since everyone listening knew her and would judge his words. ¹ He also left the usual praise of country and family "to another," allowing himself only a word about their parents: "Who is there who knows not the Abraham and Sarah of these our latter days, Gregory and Nonna his wife?" ¹

Her husband was Alypius. ¹² The translators say that, on the authority of Elias, his home was at Iconium; Janin says she was married young to a citizen of Iconium. ¹² They had two sons, whose names are not known, and three daughters; the translators say Gregory names the daughters, Alypiana, Eugenia and Nonna, in his will. ¹ Janin says the will mentions only Alypiana and leaves out the others for their conduct. ² Alypiana's husband, Nicobulus, appears in Gregory's letters as "a man of great wealth and ability." ⁵

What Gregory admired most was that marriage did not hold her back. Of the two states of life, he says, she combined "the elevation of the one and the security of the other," and showed that "it is mind which nobly presides over wedlock and maidenhood." ¹ She "won over her husband to her side, and made of him a good fellow-servant, instead of an unreasonable master," and dedicated to God "not her single soul, but the whole family and household." ¹

Gregory says she never wore jewelry, dyed or curled hair, transparent robes or cosmetics, and that the only colors she cared for were "the blush of modesty" and "the sign of temperance." ¹ She rarely laughed, guarded her eyes and ears, and opened them only to the words of God. ¹

People came to her for advice. Gregory says she was "recognized as a common adviser" not only by her own family and church but by everyone round about, "who treated her counsels and advice as a law not to be broken." ¹ She knew the Scriptures well and spoke little. ¹ She gave offerings to churches, the one where he was speaking among them, and honored priests, especially one he calls her "fellow soldier and teacher of piety." ¹

Her house was open. Gregory applies to her the words of Job: "Her door was opened to all comers; the stranger did not lodge in the street. She was eyes to the blind, feet to the lame, a mother to the orphan." ¹ He says her house was a home for the poor of her family and that the only wealth she left her children was "the imitation of her example." ¹

Her prayer impressed him most. He describes her fasting and sleeping on the ground, her "intelligent chanting of the psalter," and her knees, "which had grown hard and almost taken root in the ground." ¹ In this, he told his hearers, she surpassed "not only women, but the most devoted of men." ¹

Two episodes Gregory tells as signs of God's care for her. The first was public. Her mules bolted and overturned her carriage, and she was dragged along and badly hurt, "all crushed and bruised as she was, in bones and limbs." ¹ She would see no physician, out of modesty and because she waited for healing from God, and she recovered so quickly that people were more struck by the cure than by the accident. ¹

The second she kept secret while she lived. Gregory says only he and her bishop shared it, and he asks the bishop, who was present, to let him tell it. ¹ She fell gravely ill with a fever that physicians and public prayers could not relieve. ¹ At night, during a lull in the disease, she went to the altar, laid her head on it with tears, and said she would not let go until she was healed. ¹ Gregory says she applied to her body "such a portion of the antitypes of the Precious Body and Blood as she treasured in her hand," mingled with her tears, and went away well. ¹

She longed to die and be with Christ, Gregory says, and knew the day in advance from a vision. ¹ She had "recently obtained the blessing of cleansing and perfection," that is, baptism, and her last remaining wish, her husband's baptism, was granted too. ¹ Janin, on the other hand, says it seems she was baptized shortly before her marriage, and that Gregory credits her with bringing her husband and children to baptism. ²

She took to her bed, gave her last instructions to her husband, children and friends, and spent her last day in talk "upon the things above." ¹ Her family stood around her in silence, with "her aged mother" bending over her. ¹ When she seemed to have stopped breathing, her bishop saw her lips moving, bent down, and heard her saying the end of a psalm: "I will lay me down in peace, and take my rest." ¹

Janin dates her death to about 370, after Caesarius and before her parents, as Gregory says in one of his poems. ² The current Martyrology places her death at Nazianzus; Janin calls that doubtful, and the translators think the oration was given in Iconium. ¹²³

None of the sources consulted names Saint Gorgonia as the patron saint of anything, and this page does not supply one. ¹² The Martyrology describes her as "madre di famiglia," a mother of a family, and Gregory held her up as an example of holiness in married life. ¹³

Saint Gorgonia's feast day is December 9. ²³ The current Roman Martyrology, as the Italian bishops print it, remembers her that day at Nazianzus in Cappadocia: "santa Gorgonia, madre di famiglia, che fu figlia di santa Nonna e sorella dei santi Gregorio il Teologo e Cesario, le cui virtù celebrò lo stesso Gregorio," Saint Gorgonia, mother of a family, daughter of Saint Nonna and sister of Saints Gregory the Theologian and Caesarius, whose virtues Gregory himself celebrated. ³

Janin says her cult is fairly old: Nicephorus Callistus wrote in the fourteenth century that her virtues fully justified it. ² The Byzantine Church mentions her only with a couplet on February 23, and it was the Roman Martyrology, following Baronius, that fixed her feast on December 9. ² The translators of Gregory's orations note that she, Gregory and Caesarius are all "upon the roll of the Saints." ⁶

She lived the life most Christians live, married, with children and a household to run. Her brother thought the unmarried life the higher one, and he held her up as proof that marriage need not separate anyone from God. ¹ She prayed, he said, harder than the most devoted men, without leaving her household. ¹

The healing at the altar is told by a brother at a funeral, and it is the kind of story a reader may want to hold at a distance. ¹ Gregory knew that; he said she kept it secret, and that he told it only because he feared it would be lost. ¹

Her death is the clearest thing in the oration. She was surrounded by people who did not dare to speak, and she was saying a psalm about lying down in peace. ¹