Hierarch Byzantine

Gregory of Constantia

Also known as Gregory Bishop of Constantia

A bishop of Constantia in Cyprus, known from an early liturgical codex; few details of his life survive.

Feast Day

March 4

Draft

Draft — pending review. Not yet verified for publication.

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Commemorated as

Our Father among the Saints Gregory, Bishop of Constantia in Cyprus

Life

Gregory of Constantia was a bishop of the Church in Cyprus, commemorated by the Orthodox Church on March 4. He held the see of Constantia, the metropolitan city of Cyprus that succeeded the ancient city of Salamis. Almost nothing of his life survives in the historical record; he is known chiefly from a notice in an early liturgical manuscript.

His name is preserved in a Patmos (Patmian) codex, where he is commemorated together with another Cypriot bishop. The Orthodox Church in America records the codex as naming 'The Holy Fathers Gregory of Constantia, Cyprus and Adrian,' and suggests that this Adrian may also have been a bishop on the island. A parallel Orthodox account names the saint commemorated with Gregory as Akakios, again probably a bishop of Cyprus.

Because the surviving record is limited to this liturgical notice, no dates for his birth, episcopate, or repose, and no account of particular events in his life, have come down to us. He is venerated simply as a holy hierarch of the Cypriot Church.

Contributions & Legacy

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The See of Constantia

Constantia, the city whose Church Gregory served as bishop, was the rebuilt successor to the ancient city of Salamis on the eastern coast of Cyprus. After Salamis was damaged by earthquakes in the fourth century, it was rebuilt on a smaller scale and renamed Constantia, becoming the capital of Cyprus and the seat of its metropolitan bishop. The see's most celebrated occupant was Saint Epiphanius of Salamis around the year 400.

The surviving record does not place Gregory securely within the history of the see, so it cannot be said with confidence in which period he served. The background of Constantia is offered here only to identify the Church he shepherded, not to date his episcopate.

Commemoration and Sources

Gregory is remembered together with a fellow Cypriot bishop, named in the sources as Adrian or as Akakios. A short commemorative verse for him is preserved in the liturgical tradition. He is among the local hierarchs of Cyprus whose holiness was recorded in the Church's service books even where the details of their lives were not.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints