Gregory of Nazianzus

I've been reading Gregory of Nazianzus lately - as I reflect on the identity and mission particular to the ministry of bishops and presbyters. Here's a little fragment of something larger I'm working on.

Gregory of Nazianzus lived through the struggles of the Fourth Century, between Church and Empire, and the many theological struggles of the day exacerbated by introduction of imperium into the mix. In his time, at their worst, the theological debates became infused with coercion, domination, and the desire for power, leading to violence between Christians in the name of God. He lived at the top of a highly urbane and civilized society, noted for its wealth, high-learning, and religious pluralism – this too had its profound impacts on the Church’s identity and mission. Though an elitist in many ways, as the privileged and urbane so often are, Gregory dedicated his life to the Church, and to the work of leading within it as a pastor rooted in Word and sacrament, first and foremost.

At first interested in a life of monastic remove, and not ecclesiastical leadership, Gregory was compelled to the priesthood by his father, a bishop, who lived into the kinds of imperial corruptions we have discussed. Corruptions which led not only his father’s dalliance with the teachings of Arius – when politically convenient – but also to impure motivations for ordaining his son to the presbyterate. A desire for his son’s attainment of a prominent rank within Roman society, and the imperial tax advantages of ordination to the priesthood, seem to have been among his bishop father’s chief motivations in ordaining Gregory on Christmas Day, A.D. 362. Gregory’s own piously motivated rejection of all this led to his fleeing town Jonah-like before preaching his first sermon as a presbyter.

He soon returned in obedience to his father qua bishop, and moreover to the Church and its ordering, and put forward a definitive oration “on the priesthood.” In that piece Gregory laments that so many pastors of his time – including perhaps even his own father we might suppose -- saw “this order to be a means of livelihood, instead of a pattern of virtue.” Too many bishops and presbyters of the urbane and diverse civilization of the late fourth century saw their office as “an absolute authority, instead of a ministry of which we must give account.” As opposed to imperial loyalties, Gregory asserts that bishops and presbyters (with the whole Church) are subjects of the law of Christ before the law of the land. The role of pastors within the Body is as leaders working on behalf of the Great Shepherd.

In their servant leadership of proclamation, pastors are called to “feed God’s flock with knowledge, not with the instruments of a foolish shepherd.” In their servant leadership of benediction, blessing and absolution, pastors are called to work “according to the blessing of God, not the curse pronounced against fallen.” In their servant leadership of sacramental ministry, pastors work so that “God will give strength and power to God’s people, ‘Himself present to Himself.’” And in all these particular leadership ministries, bishops and presbyters are working for the overall gathering of the baptized, “So that in God’s temple, everyone, ‘both flock and shepherds together,’ may say, “Glory, in Christ Jesus our Lord, to Whom be all glory for ever and ever.” -- (c) 2008, Greg Jones