Who Was Pope Gregory the Great? A Saint of East and West

Few figures are claimed so warmly by both halves of the divided Church as the bishop of Rome who died in March 604. Roman Catholics call him Pope St Gregory the Great and count him among the four great Latin Doctors. The Orthodox Church keeps his memory too, under another name: St Gregory the Dialogist (Dialogos), Pope of Rome, whose name many Orthodox Christians hear every Lent at the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.

That shared memory raises real questions. Catholics cite Gregory as a witness to papal authority; Orthodox writers cite him as the pope who called the title "universal bishop" a mark of pride. His Dialogues gave the West its earliest life of St Benedict, and also the passage on a purging fire that the Catholic Catechism still quotes. The Lenten liturgy that bears his name in the East may not be his at all.

In brief

Gregory (about 540 to 604) was a Roman aristocrat who served as prefect of the city, became a monk, spent about six years as papal envoy in Constantinople, and was elected bishop of Rome in 590 during a plague. His own writings survive in bulk, so he is one of the best documented bishops of late antiquity. In 596 he sent monks to the English. He called himself "servant of the servants of God," though not first as a rebuke to Constantinople, as the story often goes. He refused the title "universal" for any bishop, his own see included, while holding a high view of Roman authority. The Dialogues, whose authorship a few scholars dispute, contain the earliest Life of St Benedict and teach a purging fire for "small sins" before the judgment. The Orthodox Church honours him on 12 March; the attribution of the Presanctified Liturgy to him is a late tradition.

Thesis: Gregory belongs to the undivided Church, and he is best honoured by reading his own words honestly, because they fit neither a simple papal story nor a simple anti-papal one.

A Roman in a ruined Rome (c. 540 to 590)

Gregory was born in Rome about 540 into a wealthy senatorial family. His father Gordianus owned estates in Sicily and a house on the Caelian Hill; his mother Silvia and two paternal aunts, Tarsilla and Aemiliana, were later venerated as saints.¹ He calls a Pope Felix, probably Felix III (483 to 492), his atavus or ancestor, though the exact relationship is uncertain.²

About 573 he was prefect of the city, the highest civil office in Rome.³ Soon afterwards he became a monk, turning the family house into the monastery of St Andrew. An early outside witness is Gregory of Tours, who died in 594 or 595 and whose deacon was in Rome in 590. He reports that Gregory "had established six monasteries in Sicily and a seventh within the Roman walls," gave away the rest of his wealth, and fasted so severely that "his stomach was weakened."⁴

He was ordained one of the deacons of Rome in 578, and Pope Pelagius II then sent him to Constantinople as apocrisiarius, the pope's envoy at the imperial court, where he stayed about six years. There he began his commentary on Job, the Moralia, for his friend Leander of Seville, and disputed with Patriarch Eutychius, insisting against him that risen bodies are palpable, like Christ's.⁵ Joan Petersen has challenged the old assumption that he knew no Greek and nothing of Eastern theology.⁶ He knew at least some of the Greek Fathers, perhaps through Latin translations: in the Pastoral Rule he appeals to "Gregory Nazianzen of reverend memory."⁷

Back in Rome as abbot of St Andrew's, he was caught up in the plague of 590. It killed Pope Pelagius, and clergy and people chose Gregory. Gregory of Tours describes him begging Emperor Maurice not to confirm the election (the letter was intercepted) and leading three days of penitential prayer, with choirs crying "Kyrie eleison" in the streets. When Gregory made ready to hide, he "was seized and brought by force to the church of the blessed apostle Peter" and consecrated.⁸ He was ordained bishop on 3 September 590.⁹ {{very-strong: Gregory's career before 590 rests on his own writings and a contemporary report by Gregory of Tours.}}

Bishop of Rome (590 to 604)

Often ill and convinced the end was near, Gregory still governed with energy. He reformed the Church's estates, seeing the pope "not as possessor, but as dispenser of the fruits for the poor of Christ," and dealt with the Lombards when imperial help failed.¹⁰ More than 800 of his letters survive.¹¹ When critics said his liturgical changes copied Constantinople, he denied it, and added a line that tells us much about him: "I am prepared in what is good to imitate even my inferiors."¹²

The Pastoral Rule

Early in his pontificate he published the Book of Pastoral Rule, addressed to Bishop John of Ravenna, on who should become a pastor, how he should live and how he should preach. Its starting point is medical. "The government of souls is the art of arts," and those who rush into it are like men who "profess themselves physicians of the heart" without knowing the remedies.¹³ The third book treats paired cases (rich and poor, joyful and sad) because "one and the same exhortation does not suit all."¹⁴

The book travelled quickly. Gregory mentions that the deacon Anatolius gave the emperor (then Maurice) a copy, which "my most holy brother and fellow bishop Anastasius of Antioch translated into the Greek tongue."¹⁵ Nearly three centuries later King Alfred of Wessex had it put into Old English.¹⁶ The same medicine of souls appears in the Moralia, where pride is "the queen of sins" and seven principal vices spring from it, a scheme Gregory received from the desert tradition through Cassian (see Sin, Passion, and Spiritual Healing).¹⁷

"Servant of the servants of God" and the "universal bishop"

Gregory's best known self-description is servus servorum Dei, "servant of the servants of God," which later popes made their formal style. It is often said that he took it up to rebuke the patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster, for calling himself "ecumenical." That story comes from John the Deacon's ninth-century Life. But as the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, "Prior to the controversy with John (595), addressing St. Leander in April, 591, Gregory employed this phrase," and a papal document of 570 had already used it.¹⁸

A synod at Constantinople in 588 had used the title "ecumenical" of John, and Gregory protested for years.¹⁹ To John he wrote that he had come "to covet to be named the only bishop."²⁰ To Emperor Maurice he wrote that "whosoever calls himself, or desires to be called, Universal Priest, is in his elation the precursor of Antichrist."²¹ When Eulogius of Alexandria addressed Gregory himself as "Universal Pope," Gregory refused that too: "my honour is the honour of the universal Church: my honour is the solid vigour of my brethren," and "if your Holiness calls me Universal Pope, you deny that you are yourself what you call me universally."²²

These letters are discussed in the site's article on papal supremacy in the early Church. Fairness requires the other half. In an earlier letter to Maurice, Gregory writes that "the care and principality of the whole Church is committed to" Peter, "and yet he is not called the universal apostle."²³ Of the church of Constantinople he writes, "who can doubt that it is subject to the Apostolic See," since emperor and patriarch alike acknowledged it.²⁴ The Catholic Encyclopedia concludes that he claimed "a primacy not of honor, but of supreme authority over the Church Universal."²⁵ {{strong: Gregory rejected the title "universal" for any bishop, including himself, while also asserting strong authority for the Roman see.}}

The mission to the English

Bede, writing about 731, tells a story "handed down to us by the tradition of our ancestors": Gregory saw fair-haired boys for sale in the Roman market, was told they were Angles, and replied, "Right, ... for they have an angelic face, and it is meet that such should be co-heirs with the Angels in heaven."²⁶

The mission itself is documented. In 596 Gregory sent Augustine and other monks; when they lost heart on the road he wrote urging them on, and in 597 King Æthelberht received them in Kent.²⁷ Gregory's own letter to Eulogius describes Augustine as "a monk of my monastery" and reports that at Christmas "more than ten thousand Angli are reported to have been baptized."²⁸

Two letters of 601 preserved by Bede show Gregory thinking about method. To Æthelberht he wrote, "suppress the worship of idols; overthrow the structures of the temples." To Abbot Mellitus, on his way to join Augustine, he wrote "that the temples of the idols in that nation ought not to be destroyed; but let the idols that are in them be destroyed," because "he who endeavours to ascend to the highest place rises by degrees or steps, and not by leaps."²⁹

The Dialogues and the Life of St Benedict

In 593 Gregory wrote four books of Dialogues on the miracles of the Italian Fathers, framed as conversations with his deacon Peter.³⁰ A letter in his Register asks Bishop Maximian of Syracuse for help, because "My brethren who live with me familiarly urge me by all means to write something briefly about the miracles of the Fathers done in Italy."³¹ Book II is given entirely to St Benedict of Nursia. Gregory says Benedict left his studies "instructed with learned ignorance, and furnished with unlearned wisdom," names four of Benedict's disciples as his informants, and notes that Benedict "wrote a rule for his monks, both excellent for discretion and also eloquent for the style."³² The book's 1911 editor called it, together with the Rule itself, "our only source for the story of his life."³³ For the wider story of monastic beginnings, see Where Did Christian Monasticism Come From?

This book is the source of Gregory's Eastern name. Pope Zacharias (741 to 752) translated the Dialogues into Greek, and in the Greek-speaking Church their author became Gregory "Dialogos."³⁴ The Orthodox life gives the same origin of the name.³⁵

The Dialogues are full of wonders, usually with a named informant. In 1987 the Jesuit historian Francis Clark argued at length that the work was a later forgery built around genuine Gregorian fragments. Paul Meyvaert and others replied, and Clark's thesis has not displaced the traditional attribution, though Marilyn Dunn has since proposed that the work as we have it was composed in England in the 670s.³⁶ {{debated: The Dialogues are Gregory's own work: the traditional attribution is widely held but has been seriously challenged.}}

Gregory and the holy images

When Bishop Serenus of Marseilles smashed images because people were adoring them, Gregory praised his zeal and rebuked the smashing: "For to adore a picture is one thing, but to learn through the story of a picture what is to be adored is another." In a picture "the illiterate read."³⁷ This is a firm defence of images in churches. It does not yet use the distinction defined at the Seventh Ecumenical Council in 787, between "honourable reverence" (proskynesis) given to icons and "that true worship of faith" (latreia) "which pertains alone to the divine nature."³⁸ Gregory's "adore" here evidently means the worship both reserve for God. See icons in the early Church.

Gregory the Dialogist in the Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church commemorates "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome" on 12 March, the day of his death; on the Julian calendar this falls on 25 March of the civil calendar. Rome now keeps his memorial on 3 September, the day of his consecration; the 1969 calendar reform moved it there from 12 March.³⁹ His troparion praises him because "you willed to walk in the path of the Gospel," and his kontakion calls him "an imitator of Christ, the chief Shepherd."⁴⁰ (See also how the Church recognises saints.)

The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts

On Lenten weekdays Orthodox parishes celebrate Vespers joined to Communion from Gifts consecrated at an earlier Liturgy, a service commonly attributed to St Gregory. The OCA's life says he "compiled the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts in the Latin language, which before him was known only in the verbal tradition."⁴¹

The historical evidence points elsewhere. The practice is first documented at Constantinople about 615, and the Council in Trullo (692) ordered: "On all days of the holy fast of Lent, except on the Sabbath, the Lord's day and the holy day of the Annunciation, the Liturgy of the Presanctified is to be said."⁴² Neither text names an author. Summarising Stefanos Alexopoulos's study of the rite, the liturgist Kyle Washut writes that the attribution to Gregory "is relatively late" and that "There does not seem to be any historical basis for an attribution to any particular author."⁴³ {{debated: Gregory composed or compiled the Byzantine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts.}} None of this diminishes the service: the name honours a Western saint in the heart of Eastern Lent.

What can we actually verify?

(a) Contemporary documents. His own works and letters, with the report of Gregory of Tours, document his dates and offices, the English mission, the "universal" dispute and the letters to Serenus. If the Dialogues are his, they are evidence for his outlook, not for every miracle they report.

(b) Later tradition. The Angles story reached Bede over a century later. The "servant of the servants" explanation is ninth-century. His connection with "Gregorian" chant and the Gregorian Sacramentary rests, the Catholic Encyclopedia notes, on John the Deacon as "the earliest authority."⁴⁴ The Presanctified attribution is later still.

(c) Reported miracles. A story known in both East and West says his prayers released the soul of the pagan Emperor Trajan; St Mark of Ephesus repeats it with the words "as it is related."⁴⁵ Such stories belong to the Church's memory, not documented history.

The purgatory passages, honestly

In Book IV of the Dialogues, asked whether there is a fire of purgatory, Gregory first insists that "in such state as a man departeth out of this life, in the same he is presented in judgment before God." Then he adds: "But yet we must believe that before the day of judgment there is a Purgatory fire for certain small sins," citing Christ's words about a sin not forgiven "neither in this world, nor in the world to come." His examples are "daily idle talk, immoderate laughter, negligence in the care of our family."⁴⁶ (The 1608 translation's "Purgatory" is rendered "a purifying fire" in the modern Catechism.) He is tentative about reading 1 Corinthians 3 this way: "if any will interpret them."

Stories follow. The deacon Paschasius, punished after death for backing the losing side in a papal election, is freed by a bishop's prayers. Justus, a monk who had hidden three gold coins, dies; later Gregory orders that "for thirty days following sacrifice be offered for him," and on the thirtieth day Justus appears to his brother to say that he has been released.⁴⁷ The 1911 editor wrote that in Book IV "we find the first rudiments of the mediaeval conception of the three states of souls in the other world."⁴⁸

The Catholic Church cites these pages today. The Catechism (1031) quotes Gregory: "As for certain lesser faults, we must believe that, before the Final Judgment, there is a purifying fire," and notes that the Church formulated its doctrine of purgatory "especially at the Councils of Florence and Trent."⁴⁹ A Catholic can fairly say that purification after death appears in a Father the East also honours.

The Orthodox Church shares much of what Gregory says: the departed are helped by prayer, almsgiving and the Eucharist. What it did not accept was the purgatory doctrine formulated at Florence (see Purgatory: What Catholics Believe and Where Orthodoxy Differs). At Ferrara in 1438, St Mark of Ephesus quoted Gregory with respect, writing that some souls are cleansed at their departure "thanks only to fear, as St. Gregory the Dialogist literally shows." On the fire of 1 Corinthians 3, though, he declined the Latin reading "even if Augustine or Gregory the Dialogist" should give it.⁵⁰ That is the Orthodox way with a Father: veneration, with freedom to set aside an opinion the whole Church has not received. Gregory's fire is also narrower than the later system: it purges "small sins" before the judgment, and says nothing of indulgences. If Dunn is right that the purgatory chapters were shaped decades after Gregory, the Catholic appeal to him would weaken, but hers remains a minority view.⁵¹

Objections and replies

"Gregory proves papal supremacy" (a Catholic objection)

A thoughtful Catholic will say that Gregory corrected bishops, heard appeals and spoke of Peter's "principality," and that he objected to a title that made other bishops mere delegates, not to Roman primacy. That is fair to part of the evidence; Gregory did not think Rome one see among equals. The Orthodox reply is that the claim of present Catholic canon law that the pope "possesses supreme, full, immediate, and universal ordinary power in the Church"⁵² is just what Gregory's letters seem to resist. He writes that of the saints "not one of them has wished himself to be called universal," that Peter, Paul, Andrew and John were "heads of particular communities" under the one Head, Christ, and that his own honour is "the honour of the universal Church."⁵³ Orthodoxy has never denied Rome's real first-millennium primacy, only that it meant what it later came to mean.

"Gregory began medieval superstition" (a Protestant objection)

A Protestant may see in the Dialogues the seeds of purgatory and Masses for the dead. The Orthodox answer is that prayer for the departed is older than Gregory (St Mark of Ephesus appeals, for example, to St Basil's prayers at Pentecost "for those who are imprisoned in Hades"),⁵⁴ and that the parts of the later Western system Protestants most objected to, such as indulgences, are also parts the Orthodox never accepted.

"The Dialogues are credulous" (a skeptical objection)

True, they do not meet modern standards of evidence. Gregory was showing monks that holiness had not left Italy in a time of war and plague. Reading the book as edifying testimony is fairer than swallowing or dismissing it whole.

What we can say confidently

• Gregory was born in Rome about 540, was prefect about 573, became a monk, served as papal envoy in Constantinople, was elected pope in 590 and died on 12 March 604.
• He wrote the Pastoral Rule, which Anastasius of Antioch translated into Greek in Gregory's lifetime.
• He sent Augustine and other monks to the English in 596; they reached Kent in 597.
• He rejected the title "universal" for any bishop, his own see included, and he also asserted strong Roman authority.
• He used "servant of the servants of God" before the dispute with John the Faster.
• The Orthodox Church venerates him as St Gregory the Dialogist on 12 March; the name comes from the Dialogues, which circulated in Greek from the eighth century.
• Book IV of the Dialogues teaches a purging fire for small sins before the judgment and the help of the Eucharist for the dead.

What remains disputed

• Whether the Dialogues, or the purgatory chapters of Book IV, are Gregory's own work (Clark and Dunn say no; their critics say yes).
• How Gregory's high view of Rome fits with his rejection of the "universal" title, and what that means for the papacy today.
• Whether he had any part in the Byzantine Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts (the evidence suggests not).
• His real role in the chant and sacramentary that bear his name.
• How far his "purging fire" anticipates the later Latin doctrine of purgatory.

Conclusion

Gregory governed a frightened city at the end of the ancient world, and what he left was mostly pastoral. He was a Latin through and through, with opinions the East did not all adopt. He was also a bishop of the one Church, in communion with Constantinople, Alexandria and Antioch, who refused any title that would make his brother bishops less than bishops.

For Orthodox Christians that is reason enough to keep his feast with gratitude. Remembering him at the Presanctified Liturgy, the Church confesses that holiness in Rome and holiness in Constantinople were once one holiness, and that the saints of the undivided Church still pray for its healing. Holy Father Gregory, pray to God for us.

For more on the Fathers of East and West, see the Church Fathers guide and the lives of the saints.

Notes

1. Gilbert Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I ('the Great')," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6 (New York: Robert Appleton, 1909), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/06780a.htm, family.
2. Edmund G. Gardner, ed., The Dialogues of Saint Gregory, 1608 translation by "P.W." (London: Philip Lee Warner, 1911), editor's notes, https://tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_04_dialogues_book4.htm, notes to Book IV, ch. 16.
3. Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I", prefecture.
4. Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, trans. Ernest Brehaut (New York: Columbia University Press, 1916), Internet Medieval Sourcebook, https://sourcebooks.fordham.edu/basis/gregory-hist.asp, X.1.
5. Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I", Constantinople, Eutychius, Moralia.
6. Joan M. Petersen, "Did Gregory the Great know Greek?" Studies in Church History 13 (1976): 121-134 (opening section consulted), https://www.cambridge.org/core/journals/studies-in-church-history/article/abs/did-gregory-the-great-know-greek/1CE09B4971A0AFDFA2B156192935F170.
7. Gregory the Great, Book of Pastoral Rule, trans. James Barmby, Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series (NPNF2), vol. 12 (1895), https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3601.htm, III, prologue.
8. Gregory of Tours, History of the Franks, X.1.
9. Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I", consecration.
10. Edmund G. Gardner, introduction to The Dialogues of Saint Gregory (1911), https://tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_00_dialogues_intro.htm.
11. Benedict XVI, General Audiences, "Saint Gregory the Great" (1) and (2), https://www.vatican.va/content/benedict-xvi/en/audiences/2008/documents/hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080528.html and .../hf_ben-xvi_aud_20080604.html ("over 800 letters").
12. Gregory, Letters IX.12, to John of Syracuse, trans. James Barmby, NPNF2 vol. 13, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360209012.htm.
13. Gregory, Pastoral Rule, I.1.
14. Gregory, Pastoral Rule, III, prologue.
15. Gregory, Letters XII.24, NPNF2 vol. 13, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360212024.htm.
16. James Barmby, introduction to the Pastoral Rule, NPNF2 vol. 12, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3601.htm (Book I page, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/36011.htm).
17. Gregory, Moralia in Job, Library of the Fathers translation (Oxford: Parker, 1844-50), https://lectionarycentral.com/trinity05/Gregorymoralia2.html, XXXI.45.87.
18. Andrew B. Meehan, "Servus servorum Dei," The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13 (1912), https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13737a.htm.
19. Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I", the title dispute.
20. Gregory, Letters V.18, to John, Bishop of Constantinople, NPNF2 vol. 12, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360205018.htm.
21. Gregory, Letters VII.33, to Emperor Maurice, NPNF2 vol. 12, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360207033.htm.
22. Gregory, Letters VIII.30, to Eulogius of Alexandria, NPNF2 vol. 12, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360208030.htm.
23. Gregory, Letters V.20, to Emperor Maurice, NPNF2 vol. 12, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360205020.htm.
24. Gregory, Letters IX.12.
25. Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I", Gregory and the Eastern Churches.
26. Bede, Ecclesiastical History of England, trans. A. M. Sellar (London: George Bell and Sons, 1907), Project Gutenberg, https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/38326, II.1.
27. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I.23-25.
28. Gregory, Letters VIII.30.
29. Bede, Ecclesiastical History, I.30, I.32.
30. Gardner, introduction.
31. Gregory, Letters III.51, to Maximian of Syracuse, NPNF2 vol. 12, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360203051.htm.
32. Gregory, Dialogues, Book II, 1608 translation, ed. Gardner (1911), https://tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_02_dialogues_book2.htm, prologue and ch. 36.
33. Gardner, introduction.
34. Gardner, introduction.
35. Orthodox Church in America, "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome" (commemorated March 12), https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2020/03/12/100789-saint-gregory-dialogus-pope-of-rome.
36. Francis Clark, The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues, 2 vols. (Leiden: Brill, 1987); Paul Meyvaert, "The Enigma of Gregory the Great's Dialogues: A Response to Francis Clark," Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988): 335-381; Marilyn Dunn, "Gregory the Great, the Vision of Fursey, and the Origins of Purgatory," Peritia 14 (2000): 238-254 (all checked through publisher and library records; not read in full).
37. Gregory, Letters XI.13 and IX.105, to Serenus of Marseilles, NPNF2 vol. 13, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360211013.htm and https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/360209105.htm.
38. Second Council of Nicaea (787), Definition, trans. Henry Percival, NPNF2 vol. 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3819.htm.
39. OCA, "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome". For the Roman calendar: Liturgy Office (England and Wales), "September: Universal Calendar," https://www.liturgyoffice.org.uk/Calendar/Universal/SepUC.shtml (3 September, memorial); Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I" (consecrated 3 September 590); for the 1969 transfer from 12 March, "St Gregory the Great, Pope," catholicreadings.org, https://catholicreadings.org/saint-gregory-the-great-pope/ (popular reference; the 1969 Calendarium Romanum not opened).
40. OCA, "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome: Troparion and Kontakion," https://www.oca.org/saints/troparia/2020/03/12/100789-saint-gregory-dialogus-pope-of-rome.
41. OCA, "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome".
42. Council in Trullo (692), canon 52, trans. Henry Percival, NPNF2 vol. 14, https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/3814.htm; for the Chronicon Paschale entry, Washut (next note).
43. Kyle Washut, "The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts" (guest article), New Liturgical Movement, March 2014, https://www.newliturgicalmovement.org/2014/03/the-liturgy-of-presanctified-gifts.html, summarising Stefanos Alexopoulos, The Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite (Leuven: Peeters, 2009).
44. Huddleston, "Pope St. Gregory I", chant and sacramentary.
45. St Mark of Ephesus, First Homily on purgatorial fire (Ferrara, 1438), English translation (translator not named on the page; SOURCE NOT VERIFIED as to translator), https://silouanthompson.net/2019/05/mark-of-ephesus-purgatory/.
46. Gregory, Dialogues, Book IV (chapter numbers of the 1911 edition; other editions number some chapters differently), https://tertullian.org/fathers/gregory_04_dialogues_book4.htm, IV.39.
47. Gregory, Dialogues IV, IV.40, IV.55.
48. Gardner, introduction.
49. Catechism of the Catholic Church, citing Gregory, Dial. 4,39, https://www.vatican.va/archive/ENG0015/__P2N.HTM, 1031.
50. Mark of Ephesus, First Homily.
51. Clark; Meyvaert; Dunn.
52. Code of Canon Law (1983), canon 331, https://www.vatican.va/archive/cod-iuris-canonici/eng/documents/cic_lib2-cann330-367_en.html.
53. Gregory, Letters V.18, and VIII.30.
54. Mark of Ephesus, First Homily.

Bibliography

Primary sources

• Gregory the Great. Book of Pastoral Rule and Register of Letters. Trans. James Barmby. Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, Second Series, vols. 12-13. Buffalo: Christian Literature Publishing Co., 1895-98. Online at New Advent.
• Gregory the Great. The Dialogues of Saint Gregory. 1608 translation by "P.W.", ed. Edmund G. Gardner. London: Philip Lee Warner, 1911. Online at tertullian.org.
• Gregory the Great. Moralia in Job. Library of the Fathers. Oxford: Parker, 1844-50.
• Gregory of Tours. History of the Franks. Trans. Ernest Brehaut. New York: Columbia University Press, 1916.
• Bede. Ecclesiastical History of England. Trans. A. M. Sellar. London: George Bell and Sons, 1907.
• Council in Trullo (692) and Second Council of Nicaea (787). Trans. Henry Percival. NPNF2 vol. 14, 1900.

Orthodox and patristic sources

• Orthodox Church in America. "Saint Gregory Dialogus, Pope of Rome" (March 12), with Troparion and Kontakion. oca.org.
• St Mark of Ephesus. First Homily on purgatorial fire (1438). English translation at silouanthompson.net.

Other scholarship (including scholars who disagree)

• Clark, Francis. The Pseudo-Gregorian Dialogues. 2 vols. Studies in the History of Christian Thought. Leiden: Brill, 1987.
• Meyvaert, Paul. "The Enigma of Gregory the Great's Dialogues: A Response to Francis Clark." Journal of Ecclesiastical History 39 (1988): 335-381.
• Dunn, Marilyn. "Gregory the Great, the Vision of Fursey, and the Origins of Purgatory." Peritia 14 (2000): 238-254.
• Petersen, Joan M. "Did Gregory the Great know Greek?" Studies in Church History 13 (1976): 121-134.
• Alexopoulos, Stefanos. The Presanctified Liturgy in the Byzantine Rite: A Comparative Analysis of Its Origins, Evolution, and Structural Components. Leuven: Peeters, 2009 (cited through Washut).
• Washut, Kyle. "The Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts." New Liturgical Movement, March 2014.
• Huddleston, Gilbert. "Pope St. Gregory I ('the Great')." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 6. New York: Robert Appleton, 1909.
• Meehan, Andrew B. "Servus servorum Dei." The Catholic Encyclopedia, vol. 13. New York: Robert Appleton, 1912.

Sources from the tradition being discussed (Roman Catholic)

• Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030-1032. vatican.va.
• Code of Canon Law (1983), canon 331. vatican.va.
• Benedict XVI. General Audiences on Saint Gregory the Great, 28 May and 4 June 2008. vatican.va.