S. GREGORY OF LANGRES, B.
(about a.d. 541.)
[Roman and Gallican Martyrologies. The life of S. Gregory of Langres was written by S. Gregory of Tours, who died 591.]
Saint Gregory, one of the principal senators of Autun, in France, was appointed count of the city, and for many years administered justice with the utmost prudence and uprightness. His wife, Armentaria, was also of senatorial rank; by her he had several children, of whom Tetricus was numbered among the Saints.
After the death of his wife, having been elected by the clergy and citizens of Langres to be their bishop, he was consecrated by the metropolitan. As bishop, his life was edifying. He was a model of humility, and sought, above all things, to conceal his acts of self-denial, and long communings with God. He ate barley bread, but that this might not be observed, he had wheat cakes piled on the table above his brown barley cakes, so that he could draw from the dish those for his own eating, whilst the others ate white bread, and supposed him to be doing the same. In like manner, at table he used a dull glass goblet, so that it might not be noticed that he drank water, whereas, the others were supplied with wine. At night, he was wont to rise from his bed, when everybody else was asleep, and steal, on tip-toe, to the baptistery of the church, where he passed several hours in prayer and singing psalms. This was long unobserved; but one night a deacon was awake, and saw the bishop rise. Wondering at his proceeding, when S. Gregory had left the dormitory, he rose also, and stole softly after him, and saw him enter the baptistery, the gate opening to him of its own accord. For some time there was silence; and then the bishop's voice was heard chanting, and immediately many voices took up the psalm, and the singing continued for three hours. "I, for my part," says S. Gregory, of Tours, "think that the Saints, of whom the relics were there preserved, revealed themselves to the blessed man, and sang praises to God in company with him."
One day, as he was walking to Langres, he was struck with fever, and he died shortly after; "and his blessed countenance was so glorified after his departure, that it looked like a blushing rose, whilst the rest of his body was shining like a white lily, so that it seemed then to have a foretaste of its future resurrection beauty." He was buried at Dijon, which was then in the diocese of Langres, and his son, Tetricus, succeeded him in the see of Langres.
There is much uncertainty about the date of his death. In some Martyrologies he is said to have died in 535; Galesinius says in 524. But he was present at the Council of Clermont, in 535, and signed the decrees of the third Council of Orleans by his deputy, Evantius, the priest, in 538; but did not appear at, or send a deputy to, the fourth Council of Orleans, in 541. It is, therefore, probable that the see was then vacant by his death.
In art, S. Gregory appears before a church door, which an angel opens to him; or with chains, because it is said that as his body was being taken to burial, the bier was set down before a prison, and the chains fell off the prisoners, and they were freed at the same moment.