9th century
Saint Gregory of Decapolis
A ninth-century monk who fought Iconoclasm, travelled among many monasteries and eventually settled in Thessaloniki.
Biography
Gregory came from Eirenopolis in the Decapolis and lived in the ninth century. He owed his early Christian upbringing to his mother Maria, and became a monk devoted especially to self-control, which he considered essential for purity of mind.
He took an active part in the struggles against the Iconoclast emperors, travelled widely among the monasteries of the East, and finally settled at the monastery of Saint Menas in Thessaloniki, where he also devoted himself to writing, before dying of a serious illness in Constantinople.