Saint Gregory of Nyssa

c. 335–395 · 4th c. · 13 works

Saint Gregory of Nyssa was bishop of Nyssa in Cappadocia and, with his elder brother Basil the Great and their friend Gregory the Theologian, one of the three Cappadocian Fathers. The most speculative and mystical of the three, he ranks among the most profound Christian thinkers of the fourth century.

Born around 335 into the same family of saints as Basil, he trained in rhetoric before turning to the service of the Church. Consecrated bishop of Nyssa by Basil in 372, he was falsely accused and deposed under Arian pressure, wandering from place to place until he was restored after the death of the emperor Valens.

He took a leading part in the Second Ecumenical Council of 381 against the errors of Macedonius concerning the Holy Spirit. His writings include the Great Catechism, On the Soul and the Resurrection, the Life of Moses, On the Making of Man — which completed Basil's Hexaemeron — and treatises against Eunomius and Apollinarius.

He died not long after the Council, around 395. Venerated as a saint and called “the Father of Fathers,” he is commemorated by the Orthodox Church on 10 January.

Sources: Orthodox Church in America — Life of St Gregory of Nyssa · Encyclopædia Britannica — St. Gregory of Nyssa