The son of a bishop, Gregory was educated, ordained, and later stationed at Narekavank on the southern shores of Lake Van (modern Turkey).

He was born in a village on the southern shores of Lake Van, in what is now eastern Turkey, to Khosrov Andzevatsi, a relative of the Artsruni royal family.

A rectangular-shaped chapel-mausoleum was built on his tomb,[8][4] which survived until the mid-20th century, when the monastery, abandoned in the aftermath of the Armenian genocide, was destroyed by the Turkish authorities, and later replaced with a mosque.

[40][29] Malachia Ormanian, scholar and Patriarch of Constantinople, wrote that Narek is "written in a florid and sublime style, is regarded as a potent talisman against all kinds of dangers.

"[41] In the 21st century, psychiatrist Armen Nersisyan has claimed to have developed a unique type of therapy based on the book, which can cure many diseases, at least partly.

[60] Gregory also wrote hymns, panegyrics on various holy figures, homilies,[31][22] numerous chants and prayers that are still sung today in Armenian churches.

[29] Scholars have noted that Gregory often departs from the standards of the Armenian and Greek traditions of panegyrics and encomia and innovates in interesting and distinctive ways.

Gregory also wrote a panegyric on St. Jacob of Nisibis, a fourth-century Syriac bishop who has been and remains today highly esteemed among Armenians.

[69] Gregory also authored around two dozen tagher (lays or odes), which are the first documented religious poems in Armenian literature, and spiritual songs called gandz, both in verse and prose.

[72] The central idea of Gregory's philosophy is eternal salvation relying solely upon faith and divine grace, and not necessarily upon the institutional church, in which his views are similar to those of the 16th century Protestant Reformation.

[80] In fact, the Narek school was instrumental in instilling Christian Neoplatonism in Armenian theology, particularly concepts such as divinization, the attainment of the power of spiritual vision or discernment through penitential purification of the inner and outer man, and a symbolic exegetical methodology.

[85] Some scholars have compared Gregory's worldview, and philosophy to those of later Sufi mystic poets Rumi and Yunus Emre,[86][87][88] and 19th century Russian writers Fyodor Dostoevsky[89] and A. K.

"[35] Vrej Nersessian considers him a "poet of world stature" in the "scope and breadth of his intellect and poetic inventiveness, and in the brooding, visionary quality of his language"—on a par with St Augustine, Dante, and Edward Taylor.

[33] Levon Zekiyan shares a similar view, describing Gregory as a unique figure not just in Armenian national and ecclesiastical culture, but also that of the entire globe.

[93] Nersessian argues that Gregory of Narek ranks with St. Augustine and Thomas à Kempis as "one the three greatest mystic writers in medieval Christendom, his monumental Lamentations joins the former's Confessions, and the latter's Imitation of Christ to form a natural trilogy.

"[94] Armenian-Russian critic Karen Stepanyan [ru] writes that Gregory's genius makes him comparable with Shakespeare, Miguel de Cervantes, and Dostoevsky.

[95] Agop Jack Hacikyan et al. note that through his "lively, vibrant, and highly individual style" Gregory shaped, refined, and greatly enriched Classical Armenian through his works.

[56] According to Hrachik Mirzoyan, Gregory may have created more than 2,500 new Armenian words, including lusankar 'a portrait or image' and օդաչու, odach'u 'a person who flies, pilot'.

Dedicated to him, Mesrop Mashtots, Yeghishe, Movses Khorenatsi, David the Invincible, and Nerses Shnorhali, it was declared a national holiday in Armenia in 2001.

[99] The exact date of his canonization by the Armenian Church is unknown, but he was already recognized as a saint by 1173, when Nerses of Lambron (Lambronatsi) included, in the earliest extant manuscript of the Book of Lamentations, a biographical section on him entitled "The Life of the Holy Man of God Grigor Narekatsi".

[109] This would become important centuries later, when the Mekhitarist Order was founded by Mkhitar Sebastatsi as part of a wider movement within the Armenian Apostolic Church towards acceptance of the Council of Chalcedon and reunification with the Holy See.

Encouraged by French Jesuit and Capuchin missionaries in the Ottoman Empire, this movement eventually resulted in both the 1707 martyrdom of Gomidas Keumurdjian and the 1742 formation of the Patriarchate of Cilicia to head the Armenian Catholic Church.

For many reasons, Gregory of Narek and Nerses Shnorhali were the only two post-Chalcedon Armenian theologians used by the Mekhitarist monks to preach reunion through their publishing apostolate based at San Lazzaro Island in Venice.

"[111] On 18 February 1989, John Paul II established the Armenian Catholic Eparchy of Saint Gregory of Narek in Buenos Aires.

Proof was demanded from Archbishop Zekiyan that the Armenian Apostolic Church has never been Monophysite and only rejected the Council of Chalcedon due to a misunderstanding over semantics.

[125][126] During a Mass on 25 June 2016 in Vartanants Square in Gyumri, Francis stated that he had "wished to draw greater attention" to Gregory by making him a Doctor of the Church.

[132][133] On 5 April 2018 a two-meter-high bronze statue of Gregory, erected by Davit Yerevantsi [hy], was unveiled at the Vatican Gardens by Mikayel Minasyan, Armenia's Ambassador to the Holy See.

[149][150] The Narekatsi Professorship of Armenian Language and Culture, established in 1969, is the oldest endowed chair of the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA).

[154] The Naregatsi Art Institute (Narekats'i arvesti miut'yun),[155] has its headquarters in Yerevan, Armenia (since 2004) and previously a center in Shushi, Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) (since 2006).

[157] A large stone resembling an old manuscript with inscribed lines and images from the Book of Lamentations was unveiled in the Narekatsi quarter of Yerevan's Avan district in 2010.