St. Gregory of Narek

Who they were

Gregory was a monk of Narek monastery by Lake Van, in the golden age of Armenian letters, and his life was outwardly one page long. He taught, he prayed, he wrote.

What he wrote became a nation's second scripture. The Book of Lamentations, ninety five prayers he called speaking with God from the depths of the heart, is poetry of such raw honesty about sin and despair and longing that Armenians have kept it for a thousand years as the book you pray when you cannot pray: read over the sick, kept under pillows, called simply the Narek. His tradition belongs to the Armenian Apostolic Church, and in 2015 Francis declared him a Doctor of the Catholic Church anyway, a gesture across a thousand year separation that makes him, with St. Irenaeus, one of the Church's two Doctors of bridges. St. Bartholomew brought the faith to Armenia; Gregory is what it grew into there.

Why people turn to St. Gregory of Narek

Anyone whose prayer has run out of words: the depressed, the burned out, the griever past formulas. The Narek exists for exactly them. Armenian families, whose saint he simply is.

How to ask their intercession

His own method, which is to borrow words when you have none. One of his prayers, or one decade prayed with no intention except the depths. St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Calcutta know this road too.