Pope Francis has named Saint Gregory of Narek, a tenth-century Armenian monk and poet, a Doctor of the Church. In Armenian churches, St. Gregory’s poetic texts have been and continue to this day to be read liturgically. More information here:
Updated link: Vatican Radio
I will confess that I had never heard of this saint.
I note that St. Gregory’s elevation to the group of Doctors of the Church comes in the year of the centenary of the Armenian genocide, in which between 1 and 1.5 million Armenians lives were lost.
Hi. Teresa, for some reason the link in your post doesn’t work for me, bu this one did:
http://en.radiovaticana.va/news/2015/02/23/pope_francis_declares_armenian_saint_doctor_of_the_church/1125062
I looked around a very little bit for his Book of Lamentations on the web but didn’t find a link.
I think these are links:
http://armenianhouse.org/grigor-narekatsi/tenets.html
http://www.stgregoryofnarek.am/book.php
“expressed in practical words born of much grief…
called the book of lamentations written
by the monk Gregory of Narek Monastery.”
is from the 1st page of the second link.
Jim, many thanks – that does seem to be it. It looks like it could be an approachable reading series for Lent.
I don’t know if you looked around on that site much, but there is a schedule of readings for Lent 2013 at http://www.stgregoryofnarek.am/lenten.php
I think it could be adapted to this year, and to our calendar, even though it is tied to the Lenten readings in the Armenian Church.
The Choral Concerto by Alfred Schnittke is a relatively well-known setting of some of the Lamentations of St Gregory of Narek: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VGc-Tu_1yGw.
Over at the First Thoughts blog (affiliated with First Things), law professor Mark Movsesian notes that St. Gregory Narek, as a priest of the Armenian Apostolic Church, belonged to a church that is not fully in communion with the Catholic Church, having broken over the Council of Chalcedon several centuries before St. Gregory’s life. St. Gregory would not have thought of himself as Catholic.
Movsesian, himself a member of the Armenian Apostolic Church, notes that Francis is breaking some potentially momentous ground, presumably with ecumenical resonance. The post provides some interesting details on the theological differences, as well as how it is that the Catholic Church considers St. Gregory a saint, much less a doctor.
http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2015/02/the-newest-doctor-of-the-church