St. Gregory, Bishop of Langres Name: St. Gregory, Bishop of Langres Date: 4 January
Saint Gregory was the Count of Autun, a Christian administrator whose government wasrespected and blessed by the citizens of that city. After governing for about forty years, he lost hisworthy wife in death, and then, resigning his office, he entered into the clergy. It was not longbefore he was consecrated, in view of his singular virtues, Bishop of Langres. Saint Gregory ofTours wrote of him that “he lived like an anchorite in the midst of the world.” During hisadministration, two monasteries which would later acquire fame were founded in his diocese, thatof Saint John de Reome, and an offshoot founded by Saint Seine. Saint Gregory presided in the see of Langres with admirable prudence and zeal for anotherthirty-three years, sanctifying his pastoral labors by the most profound humility, assiduous prayer,and extraordinary abstinence and mortification. An incredible number of infidels were convertedby him from idolatry, and worldly Christians from their disorders. He died at the beginning of theyear 539, a few days after the Epiphany. Out of devotion to Saint Benignus, he desired to beburied near that Saint’s tomb at Dijon; that wish was fulfilled by the care of his virtuous sonTetricus, who succeeded him in his see. |