Gregory of Dekapolis

Gregory of Dekapolis
Miniature of Saint Gregory of Dekapolis, from the Menologion of Basil II, ca. 985
the New Miracle-Worker
Born	before 797 Irenopolis
Died	20 November 842 or earlier Constantinople
Venerated in	Eastern Orthodox Church Roman Catholic Church
Feast	November 20

Saint Gregory of Dekapolis or Gregory Dekapolites (Greek: Όσιος Γρηγόριος ο Δεκαπολίτης; before 797 – 20 November 842 or earlier) was a 9th-century Byzantine monk, notable for his miracle-working and his travels across the Byzantine world. He is known as "the New Miracle-Worker" (ο νέος θαυματουργός, ho neos thaumatourgos), and his feast day in the Eastern Orthodox Church is on November 20.

Gregory was born in the late 8th century at Irenopolis in the Isaurian Dekapolis, whence his sobriquet. Francis Dvornik placed his birth between 780 and 790, while Cyril Mango regarded the year 797 as a terminus ante quem for his birth. His parents were Sergios and Maria, and he had at least one brother, whose name is not known. A later relative of the family was the early 10th-century Patriarch of Constantinople, Euthymius.

According to his hagiography, he began his elementary schooling at age eight, but fled his home to the mountains when his parents wanted to marry him (ca. 815/6). There he encountered the former bishop of Irenopolis, who had been forced to abandon his see due to his opposition to the renewed adoption of Iconoclasm. After receiving his blessing, and on the advice of his mother, he entered the monastery where his brother was already a monk. Soon, however, he fell out with his pro-iconoclast abbot, and abandoned the monastery for that of his maternal uncle, Symeon. He remained at his uncle's monastery for 14 years, after which he asked permission to retire to a cave as a hermit (ca. 830). There he reportedly experienced a vision of the divine light, as well as an appearance by a woman who miraculously cured him of sexual desire by means of some sort of operation, a possible allusion to Gregory being a eunuch.