Gregory of Cerchiara, St.
GREGORY OF CERCHIARA, ST.
Abbot; b. Cassano al l'Ionio, Calabria, Italy, c. 930;d. Abbey of Burtscheid, Germany, 1002. He became monk and abbot of the basilian monastery of San Andrea at Cerchiara. The Saracen invasion drove him to Rome, where, with the generous endowment of the Empress Theophano (d. 991), he founded the monastery of San Salvatore c. 990. At her request Gregory went to Germany and founded at Burtscheid the Greek monastery dedicated to SS. Apollinaris and Nicholas. This place became the center for the diffusion of Byzantine culture in German lands. There Gregory died as abbot and was buried. His life and early cult, fact tangled with fancy, are known only through Latin sources. Nothing certain remains to document his cult, which seems confined to Burtscheid and to his fellow Basilians. His relics are preserved at Burtscheid and at fulda.
Feast: Nov. 4
Bibliography: Acta Sanctorum Nov. 2:463–477. s. hilpisch, Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche, ed. j. hofer and k. rahner, 10v. (2d, new ed. Freiburg 1957–65) 4:1192. f. russo, "Sulla vita Gregorii abbatis, " Bollettino di badia greca di Grottaferrata 2 (1948) 193–205. a. m. zimmermann, Kalendarium Benedictinum: Die Heiligen und Seligen des Benediktinerorderns und seiner Zweige, 4 v. (Metten 1933–38) 3:258–260.
[n. m. riehle]