Historical Context
Gregory belonged to Byzantine Sicily, where Agrigentum (modern Agrigento) was a bishopric within the sphere of both Rome and the wider Greek-speaking Christian world. His career, as his sources describe it, bridged the Latin West and the Greek East: a Sicilian by birth who was ordained in Jerusalem, formed as a monk in the East, and connected to Constantinople before returning to govern his home see.
His episcopate is placed in the period of Pope Gregory I (the Great). Wikipedia records that this pope selected him as bishop around 590 and that a series of papal letters between 591 and 603 bear on his tenure and the accusations against him, one of the few points where the traditional life can be checked against documentary evidence.
The False Accusation and Vindication
The central episode of Gregory's hagiography is his trial on a false charge. The traditional lives relate that rivals — named in one account as two priests, and identified elsewhere with the figures Sabinus and Crescentius — bribed a woman to accuse him of immoral conduct, resulting in his imprisonment at Rome for roughly two to two-and-a-half years.
According to the OCA account, a synod was convened at the urging of the elder Mark, and Gregory's prayers freed the woman from demonic possession, at which the whole truth was revealed and he was fully vindicated. His accusers were punished, exiled in some tellings, and Gregory returned to lead his see in peace. Renowned as a defender of the down-trodden, a preacher, and a healer, he is remembered above all for this trial and vindication.
Works
A Greek commentary on Ecclesiastes is traditionally attributed to Gregory of Agrigentum and has been considered one of the best treatments of that book surviving from antiquity.
Scholars debate the attribution: some hold that the commentary's author was a distinct, later Gregory active around the reign of Emperor Justinian II (685–711), rather than the sixth-century bishop. The attribution therefore remains uncertain.
Relics & Shrines
Portions of Gregory's relics are reported to be preserved at monasteries in Greece and Russia.
Sources and Hagiography
Gregory's life was recorded in a hagiography attributed to Leontios of the San Saba monastery in Rome, preserved in some twenty manuscripts. Scholars disagree sharply on its date of composition: Albrecht Berger has argued for a range of 750–828, while John Martyn has proposed a date around 640.
The traditional narrative contains internal chronological inconsistencies — most notably a reported role at the Fifth Ecumenical Council (553) that is difficult to reconcile with a birth date of about 559 — and the differing lives disagree on details such as the names of his parents. These tensions are noted in the scholarly and reference literature.
