Gregory of Narek

Gregory of Narek (Grigor Narekatsi) was an Armenian monk, poet and theologian of the tenth century. He was born around 950 into a family of churchmen, and his father, Khosrov Andzevatsi, was a bishop. As a young man he entered the monastery of Narek on the southeastern shore of Lake Van, then a thriving center of learning, and he died in 1003.¹

He is best known for the Book of Lamentations, also called Narek, a book of prayers that he wrote in his mature years and finished shortly before his death.¹² An English translation with an introduction and annotations by Thomas Samuelian is online at ARAK29, and the same translator’s edition appeared in Yerevan in 2001 as Speaking with God from the Depths of the Heart.³²

On 12 April 2015, a hundred years after the Armenian Genocide, Pope Francis proclaimed him a Doctor of the Church, a title the Catholic Church gives to saints whose teaching has guided the whole Church. The pope described him as a tenth-century monk who “gave voice to the sentiments of the Armenian people” better than anyone else, and who turned the cry of sinful and sorrowful humanity into prayer.⁴