[5] According to his hagiography, he began his elementary schooling at age eight, but fled his home to the mountains when his parents wanted to marry him (ca.

There he encountered the former bishop of Irenopolis, who had been forced to abandon his see due to his opposition to the renewed adoption of Iconoclasm.

There he reportedly experienced a vision of the Tabor light, as well as an appearance by a woman who miraculously cured him of sexual desire by means of some sort of operation, a possible allusion to Gregory being a eunuch.

Gregory remained in a cell in Rome for three months, before continuing his journey to Syracuse in Sicily, where he again spent time in isolated contemplation in a tower in the harbour.

850, his remains were transferred to a monastery founded by Joseph the Hymnographer near the grave of John Chrysostomos in the Church of the Holy Apostles.

[8] The hagiography describing his life is attributed to the contemporary monk and writer Ignatios the Deacon, but the authorship is disputed.

[4] Although he lived through the second period of the Byzantine Iconoclasm, and is recorded as an advocate of the iconophile view, Gregory was not persecuted.