GREGORY OF NAREK (c. 945–c. 1010), or, in Armenian, Grigor Narekatsi, was a Christian mystic, poet, and saint of the Armenian church. Gregory was born in the village of Narek in the region of Vaspourakan (present-day Van, eastern Turkey). His father, Khosrov Antsevatsi, bishop of the nearby province of Antsevatsikʿ, built a monastery, where Gregory obtained his elementary schooling. He continued his education in the Monastery of Narek, where after ordination he spent the remainder of his life.

The rulers of the kingdom of Vaspourakan favored ties with Byzantium. Consequently, the Monastery of Narek trained its novices in the trivium and quadrivium, having incorporated the syllabi used in the educational centers throughout the Eastern Christian empire. Thus Gregory was well versed in Greek philosophy, especially in the thought of Plato, Aristotle, and the Neoplatonic school, which by the tenth century had been clothed in Christian...