Gregory of Nicomedia

Venerable Gregory of Nicomedia (Gregory the Ascetic) was a Greek hieromonk and ascetic, born around 1190 in Bithynia and died around 1240, at the age of fifty. He is commemorated on 2 April. His commemoration is not entered in the old synaxaria of the Greek Church. His life was written in the middle of the fourteenth century by Joseph Kalothetos, who died in 1355, and Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain placed his life in his book New Eklogion (1803), under 2 April. Our sources give no act of canonization.

He was born in the region of Bithynia. His name in the world is not known. His parents were Orthodox Christians, of famous and noble origin. According to the Life, he received a good secular education. Then he entered one of the best monasteries, where he was tonsured, learned church singing, and was ordained deacon, then priest. Pursued by the envy of men, he went to another monastery, in the vicinity of a village. His brother lived there. There he laboured together with his brother for three years, and then asked the abbot's permission to go to a more secluded place. He resolved to spend his life in silence and climbed a nearby mountain on the shore of the Gulf of Nicomedia, where he decided to remain for ever. He built a kalyva (small hut).

Gregory died at fifty. He left no writings.