Austria secretly agreed with Russia and in 1775 obtained from the North Gate the west of Moldavia, which he would call "Bukovina", although the ruler and the boyars protested vehemently.

The Turks sent a hood (executor), Ahmed Cara Hisarli-aga,[6] to Grigore's court, with the order to communicate his death and to bring him alive or dead to Istanbul.

And so he died in a quarrel with his assassins Gregory III of Moldavia, on 1 October 1777, his head was taken to Istanbul, his body being buried at the monastery of St. Spiridon in Iasi.

Professor and historian Ion Nistor, in his paper History of Bukovina[10] reproduces the notes of a correspondent from Istanbul, dated 19 November 1777, on the cause of the assassination of the ruler of Moldavia by order of the Sultan "...

Ungureanu[11] quotes the description of the murder of Grigore Ghica Voda, made in the chronicle written by Iordachi Sion and continued by his son Antohi: a capigi-başa by order of the Gate di mazilit pre Grigori Vodă Ghica and at three o'clock and half of the night they killed him at the houses in Beilic, a pity for him how they killed him and what kind of death the poor man died -and his Lady and the beizadels took them and took them to Ţarigrad - woe to them..." He is buried at the church of Saint Spiridon in Iasi, under the stone whose inscription (in Greek) reminds that: and descending from great ancestors being abducted by death before time and now living in the dwellings of heaven.

[12] In literature he is met as the main character of the first play written in Romanian: Occisio Gregorii in Moldavia Vodae tragice expressa.

[citation needed] He married Ecaterine Rizou-Rangave and his son was Media related to Grigore III Ghica at Wikimedia Commons