ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN NOVEMBER Saints celebrated on the 14th of November WELCOME! SAINT GREGORY PALAMAS, BISHOP Gregory, an Eastern Orthodox cleric, was born in Constantinople around 1296, the son of Constantine, a courtier of the Byzantine Emperor Andronikos II Palaiologos. Because his father died when Gregory was still young, the Emperor himself took part in the raising and education of the boy and hoped that Gregory would devote himself to government service, but Gregory, at barely 21 years of age, entered a monastery on Mount Athos (in modern Greece) and followed the rule of Saint Basil . He lived on Athos in solitude for most of the following twenty years. In 1326, because of the threat of Turkish invasions, he and the brethren retreated to the defended city of Thessaloniki, where he was then ordained a priest. Dividing his time between his ministry to the people and his pursuit of spiritual perfection, he founded a small community of hermits near Thes...