Few popes, such as Gregory I, have brought about such a crucial turning point in the history of the Church

3 September 590. Gregory I, of Rome, was elected; he marked a crucial turning point in the history of the Church. He is remembered in history as one of the three Popes to whom the title ‘the Great’ is bestowed (the others being Leo I and Nicholas I). He belonged to the noble Anici family and his father was a senator. Gregory received a thorough education, culminating in his appointment as Prefect of Rome – the city’s highest civil office – at the age of just thirty. The administrative experience he gained proved fundamental to his future. On his father’s death, he chose to abandon his political career to become a monk. He used the wealth he had inherited to help the poor, to transform the family home, on the Clivo di Scauro on the Caelian Hill, into a monastery, and to found six more in Sicily on his ancestral lands. His life choices and his rigour did not go unnoticed. Pope Benedict I ordained him a deacon, and Pelagius II sent him as an apocrisarius to Constantinople, where he established strong ties with the court and with Emperor Maurice.

On his return to Rome, he became a leading adviser to Pelagius II and, upon the latter’s death, was unanimously elected Pope. He sought to oppose the appointment by writing directly to the Emperor to ask him not to ratify it, but events took a different turn from what he had hoped, and he was swiftly consecrated. The fourteen years of his pontificate had a profound impact on Rome and on Europe. Faced with the managerial incompetence and indifference of the Byzantine imperial representatives, Gregory took the reins of the city and of the Patrimony of St Peter – territories belonging to the Roman Church in Italy, Africa, Gaul and Dalmatia – through prudent and efficient administration, effectively laying the foundations for the emergence of a ‘state’ governed by the Pope. He also made his own wealth available, in the conviction – expressed in his writings – that almsgiving was an act of justice for the redistribution of goods belonging to all mankind. On the geopolitical front, he secured the Catholic baptism of Queen Theodolinda’s son, Adaloald, thereby initiating the conversion of the entire Lombard people, who until then had been Arian. He sent monks to evangelise Britain, a risky undertaking amongst hostile peoples and beyond imperial control; yet, through its success, it opened up new horizons for the future of the Western Church.

But the greatest legacy left by Gregory was the radical revision – not to say the overturning – of the very concept of the head of the Church. He conceived the papal office first and foremost as that of the ‘servant of the servants of God’. He included the expression servus servorum Dei – still used by Popes today – in his own letters as a title characterising the Pope’s mission, immediately following that of Bishop of Rome. This dual reference to the foundation of the Roman primacy – rooted in service and proclamation – was subsequently taken to heart by particularly discerning Popes.

29 August 1261: Urban IV was elected

29 August 1484: Innocent VIII was elected

29 August 1799: Pius VI dies

30 August 257: Sixtus II was elected

30 August 1181: Alexander III dies

30 August 1464: Paul II was elected

1 September 1159: Adrian IV dies

1 September 1181: Lucius III was elected

1 September 1271: Gregory X was elected

3 September 590: Gregory I was elected

3 September 1914: Benedict XV was elected