Gregory came from a well-known family of the Anici patricians with Christian traditions – his great-grandfather was Pope Felix III (V century), while a relative of his was Pope Agapetus I (VI century). The family also counted emperors of the Western Empire among its descendants. Three aunts were nuns, while the father in whose footsteps the future pope followed, was a high-ranking official of the Senate. Proper education in dialectics, rhetoric and grammar allowed Gregory to assume a high official post. As praefectus urbi he was responsible in Rome for the provision of food, care over mills, as well as roads and aqueducts. After the death of his father he resigned from further career and at the age of 35 decided to thoroughly change his life. He joined the Order of St. Benedict, while the estates inherited on Celio Hill were devoted to a monastery for twelve monks. Furthermore, on the slopes of the hill with a view of Circus Maximus, in a place where his family’s city residence was located, and today stands the Church of San Gregorio Magno, a church devoted to St. Andrew (Sant’Andrea) was built.

However, Gregory was not destined for the life of a monk spent on simple meals, regular prayers, reading of the Scriptures, work, and sleep. After four years of monastery solitude Pope Pelagius II made him his deacon and sent him on a mission to Constantinople in order to get support in the battle against the Longboards who were threatening Rome at the time. After six years of service Gregory returned to the Eternal City which was besieged by the plague. He aided the sick and the dying, winning over the hearts of Romans in the process. Care for the needy was one of the fundaments of his world view, similarly to the conviction that alms are a basic responsibility of a Christian – a donation for Christ. In 590 Pelagius II died from the plague and Gregory was unanimously chosen as the Bishop of Rome by the clergy, Senate and the people.

When loot-thirsty Longboards, stood at the gates of Rome, following an example set by his great predecessor Leo I, he bought out the city for 500 pounds of gold and he obliged to pay an annual tribute, thus saving the city from destruction and further winning over the Roman populace.

Gregory I was an ingenious organizer and an independent thinker, head and shoulders above his time – he exhibited both tolerance, for example towards the Jews, whom he did not want to baptize forcefully, as well as an uncompromising attitude towards pagans, who still inhabited the regions of the former Roman Empire (whippings or imprisonment depending on their social status). He sent missionaries both to the West and North – to the Saxons and the British Isles, also fighting against all deviations from orthodox faith, meaning the followers of Donatism and Arianism. At the Council which he called himself in the year 595, he introduced reforms to the Church and taking a strict monastic rule as an example he wanted to centralize and hierarchize it. He was a proponent of celibacy, but he did not order it, he did however, forbid simony (the sale of Church offices) and nepotism. He assigned bishops to their dioceses while organizing then anew. He required absolute obedience and discipline from priests, and severely condemned all show of insubordination.

During the fourteen-year long pontificate of Gregory the faith of the inhabitants was strengthened along with the Western Church, which achieved a leading position in the Christian world. Officially Rome was a city which belonged to the Byzantine Emperor, albeit independent of him, but Gregory saw it as a final resting place of great apostles – SS. Peter and Paul as well as a number of other martyrs (real or assumed), and as a missionary center, of which the aim was Christianization of the furthest reaches of the world. At that time the Church was the only authority in the city.

During the pontificate of Gregory through consolidation of lands belonging to the Church (which were a leaven of the later State of the Church) and obtaining agricultural products from these lands, it was possible to organize their regular shipments and make the inhabitants of Rome who were continually threatened by hunger feel secure. Income from these lands was divided into three parts.  One part was assigned for the needs of the clergy, the second for the construction and maintenance of Church buildings and the third for charity.

With strengthening of faith in mind, seeing its erosion and the susceptibility of the Roman populace to magic and superstitions, Gregory decided to infuse the Church with elements of new spirituality, distant from the intellectual speculations of the ancient Fathers of the Church, and thus bring it nearer to a broad number of the faithful. In order to achieve this aim he introduced the habit of procession, common praying of litany and mandatory participation in masses (30 Gregorian masses) for the dead, with the aim of saving a repenting soul. Another important element which brought together the faithful was the conviction of the miraculousness of relics. It is important to remember that it is these very relics which constituted the magnet drawing pilgrims to Rome, therefore, it should come as no surprise that belief in them was upheld and supported by the Church and the pope himself.

In his writings Gregory also devoted much attention to matters of corporality and it is his teachings that for centuries filled Catholic morality – the greatest sin (worse than sodomy and incest) was considered to be coitus interruptus, it was also considered sinful to have sexual relations without the aim of procreation or to masturbate. The pope also dealt with the sexuality of the clergy, attempting to solve the contradiction between the acceptance of sexuality of the priests, with the aim of procreation and the criticism of large families with which priests surrounded themselves. The only solution was the aforementioned celibacy, but the time for its introduction, which was already suggested by Gregory’s predecessor, was not yet at hand.

In the last years of his life, Gregory suffered from gout. After death his remains were buried in the Basilica of St. Peter (San Pietro in Vaticano), while the place of his eternal rest is marked with the inscription Consul Dei (Consul of God). The bishop’s throne which is attributed to him, and upon which according to legends he sat, is found in the Church of San Gregorio Magno.

After Gregory’s canonization, which took place shortly after his death, for centuries images or him were created, and chapels and churches were devoted to him. One of the first images of the pope was his mosaic figure in the Church of Sant’Agnese fuori le mura, created in the VIII century, funded by his great devotee – Pope Honorius I.

During the pontificate of Gregory I no new church was created, while his only construction undertaking was the modernization of the interiors of the Vatican Basilica and the Basilica of St. Paul Outside the Walls (San Paolo fuori le mura), in order to provide pilgrims with a comfortable and easy access to the relics of the martyr apostles.

However, at the end of the VI century at the foot of Palatine Hill, the Church of Santa Maria Antiqua was built by Justinian, the Emperor of the Eastern Empire, for his representatives who then resided in Rome. It was adorned with Byzantine paintings reminiscent of those found in Constantinople. Today, brought back to life, exquisitely renovated, it is one of the attractions of Forum Romanum, and at the same time the only church from early Middle Ages which can be seen in Rome in its original form.

Gregory devoted his own residence to an oratory and a monastery. From the complex of numerous buildings and utility structures three survived until present day – reconstructed in the XVII century:

•       Oratory Santa Silvia devoted to the mother of Pope Gregory I – St. Silvia; in its apse there is a fresco by Guido Reni (Concert of Angels)
•         Oratory Sant’Andrea – with paintings by Guido Reni and Domenichino
•         Oratory Santa Barbara – it is here that according to a legend the pope along with his mother daily gave out food to the poor; on the walls of the oratory there are scenes depicting episodes from the life of Pope Gregory by Antonio Viviani (1607)

The Romans associated many legends and miraculous events with Pope Gregory. One of them concerns the Mausoleum of Hadrian. During the plague the pope was to have organized a penitential procession. During it the Archangel Michael with a sword in his hand, appeared over the building, in this way giving a sign that the disease subsided. From that moment the mausoleum was named The Castle of the Holy Angel (Sant’Angelo). This miraculous event is depicted on one of the frescos found in the courtyard of the Church of San Gregorio Magno.