HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg CH (1873–1961) was a
Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the secon ...
clergyman, from 1915 Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin, in 1920 translated to become Archbishop of Dublin, and finally from 1939 until 1959 Archbishop of Armagh. He was also a theologian and historian.


Life

Gregg was born at
North Cerney North Cerney is a village and civil parish in the English county of Gloucestershire, and lies within the Cotswolds, a range of hills designated an Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty. The village is north of Cirencester within the Churn valley. ...
,
Gloucestershire Gloucestershire ( abbreviated Glos) is a county in South West England. The county comprises part of the Cotswold Hills, part of the flat fertile valley of the River Severn and the entire Forest of Dean. The county town is the city of Gl ...
,
England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...
,
United Kingdom The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, commonly known as the United Kingdom (UK) or Britain, is a country in Europe, off the north-western coast of the European mainland, continental mainland. It comprises England, Scotlan ...
on 4 July 1873. His elder sister,
Hilda Gregg Hilda Caroline Gregg (20 June 186822 June 1933) was an English author who wrote novels and short stories under the name Sydney C. Grier. She had her fiction printed in ''The Bristol Times'' in 1886, then William Blackwood and Sons published her f ...
was a popular novelist. He was educated at Bedford School, and at Christ's College, Cambridge, where he was a classical scholar and won the Hulsean Prize Essay competition for 1896 with ''The Decian Persecution''.Seaver, George, ''John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, Archbishop'' (Faith Press, 1963), p. 10 Gregg graduated BA in 1895; MA 1898; BD 1910; BD (Dublin – ad eundem) 1911; DD (Dublin) 1913; DD (Cantab) – 1929, and was educated for the Anglican Ministry at Ridley Hall. He came from an Anglo-Irish family, which boasted a large number of
Church of Ireland The Church of Ireland ( ga, Eaglais na hÉireann, ; sco, label= Ulster-Scots, Kirk o Airlann, ) is a Christian church in Ireland and an autonomous province of the Anglican Communion. It is organised on an all-Ireland basis and is the secon ...
clergy within its ranks. His grandfather, another John Gregg, had sat in the
House of Lords The House of Lords, also known as the House of Peers, is the upper house of the Parliament of the United Kingdom. Membership is by appointment, heredity or official function. Like the House of Commons, it meets in the Palace of Westminste ...
as
Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross The Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross is the Church of Ireland Ordinary of the united Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross in the Province of Dublin. The current bishop is the Right Reverend Paul Colton William Paul Colton (born 13 March 1960) ...
, and his uncle,
Robert Samuel Gregg Robert Samuel Gregg (3 May 1834 – 10 January 1896) was a 19th-century Anglican bishop. Life He was born at the rectory, Kilsallaghan, County Dublin, of which parish his father, John Gregg, was then rector, on 3 May 1834. His mother was Eliz ...
served briefly as Archbishop of Armagh in the 1890s after a long episcopate as
Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross The Bishop of Cork, Cloyne and Ross is the Church of Ireland Ordinary of the united Diocese of Cork, Cloyne and Ross in the Province of Dublin. The current bishop is the Right Reverend Paul Colton William Paul Colton (born 13 March 1960) ...
. J A F Gregg went on to be a notable church historian. He served as assistant curate of Ballymena under
Charles d'Arcy Charles Frederick D'Arcy (2 January 1859 – 1 February 1938) was a Church of Ireland bishop. He was the Bishop of Clogher from 1903 to 1907 when he was translated to become Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin before then becoming the Bish ...
1896–1899, then as Curate at Cork Cathedral (1899–1906), and as Rector of Blackrock, Co. Cork (1906–1911), before being appointed in 1911 Archbishop King's Professor of Divinity in Trinity College, Dublin. In 1915 he became Bishop of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin, in 1920 Archbishop of Dublin. He was accompanied by the Bishop of Cashel Robert Miller and by Protestant businessman Sir William Goulding "to see Michael Collins in May 1922, following the murders of thirteen Protestants in the Bandon valley, to ask whether the Protestant minority should stay on. Collins 'assured them that the government would maintain civil and religious liberty'." He was elected to Armagh in 1938, but refused the position largely on account of his wife's health, and Godfrey Day, Bishop of Ossory, was elected in his place. Following Day's death in 1939, Gregg was again elected Archbishop of Armagh which post he held until his retirement in 1959. He was married twice. First in 1902 to Anna Jennings (died 1945) by whom he had two sons and two daughters, and secondly, in 1947, to Lesley McEndoo, younger daughter of the then Dean of Armagh. His daughter, Barbara, was a novelist. He was a supporter of the old Unionist order but encouraged his flock to make their peace with the post-1922 political realities in Ireland. According to R. B. McDowell –
"...the Church of Ireland was led (or some would say dominated) by John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, archbishop successively of Dublin and Armagh, who might fairly be described as an instinctive conservative with, however, an awareness of contemporary trends... Gregg's bearing suggested a
prince of the church The term Prince of the Church is today used nearly exclusively for Catholic cardinals. However, the term is historically more important as a generic term for clergymen whose offices hold the secular rank and privilege of a prince (in the widest s ...
or at least a prelate of the establishment... he was a scholar and a man of affairs, his administrative flair being reinforced by dignity, decisiveness, and a sardonic wit... His theological sympathies were
high church The term ''high church'' refers to beliefs and practices of Christian ecclesiology, liturgy, and theology that emphasize formality and resistance to modernisation. Although used in connection with various Christian traditions, the term originate ...
, though he had been brought up an
evangelical Evangelicalism (), also called evangelical Christianity or evangelical Protestantism, is a worldwide interdenominational movement within Protestant Christianity that affirms the centrality of being " born again", in which an individual expe ...
and had an Anglo-Irish distaste for ceremonial exuberance.


Selected publications

*''The Decian persecution; being the Hulsean prize essay for 1896'' *''The epistle of St. Clement: bishop of Rome'' (1899) *''The Wisdom of Solomon'' (1909)Gregg, J. Allen Fitzgerald. (1909)
The Wisdom of Solomon
in the Revised Version : with introduction and notes. Cambridge: University Press.
*''The Primitive Faith and Roman Catholic Developments: Six Sermons Delivered in St Fin Barre's Cathedral, Cork, Lent, 1909'' *''Anglican orders and the prospects of reunion'' (1930) *''The Ne Temere Decree: A Lecture'' (1943)


Honours

*1957: Companion of Honour


Bibliography

*Seaver, George, ''John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, Archbishop'' (Faith Press, 1963) *Simms, George, ''John Allen Fitzgerald Gregg, 1873–1961: An Appreciation of His Life and Times, Delivered in Christ Church Cathedral, Dublin, on 4th July 1973 Being the Hundredth Anniversary of His Birth'' (1973, 14 pages) *


References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Gregg, John Allen Fitzgerald 1873 births 1961 deaths Irish Anglicans Academics of Trinity College Dublin Anglican archbishops of Armagh Anglican archbishops of Dublin 20th-century Anglican archbishops Anglican biblical scholars Alumni of Christ's College, Cambridge Bishops of Ossory, Ferns and Leighlin Irish unionists Members of the Senate of Southern Ireland People educated at Bedford School British expatriate archbishops