Saint Gregentius of Taphar

Gregentios (Greek: Γρηγέντιος) was the purported archbishop of Ẓafār, the capital of the kingdom of Ḥimyar, in the mid-6th century, according to a hagiographical dossier compiled in the 10th century. This compilation is essentially legendary and fictitious, although a few parts of it are of historical value. Written in Greek, it survives also in a Slavonic translation. The three works in the dossier are conventionally known as the Bios (Life), Nomoi (Laws) and Dialexis (Debate), respectively a biography of Gregentios (sometimes called the Life of Saint Gregentios), the laws he wrote for the kingdom and a debate he had with a Jew. The whole dossier is sometimes known as the Acts of Gregentios. The name Gregentios is unknown apart from the Bios and related texts. According to the Bios, he received his name from a local holy man. Several later scribes, encountering an unheard of name, changed it to Gregorios (Gregory). This is the name that appears in all the Slavonic versions, as well as an Arabic translation of the Dialexis. It also appears in the fresco depicting Gregentios in the monastery of Koutsovendis on Cyprus, painted between 1110 and 1118. Other scribal emendations are Gregentinos and Rhegentios. The name has a Latin ending, which may indicate a western origin for the name, but such suffixes had entered vernacular Greek by the time the Bios was written. The name may be derived from Agrigentius, "man from Agrigento", or from a combination of the name Gregory with either Agrigentius or the name of Saint Vincentius. The biography of Gregory of Agrigento was a major source used by the author of the Bios, and an itinerary of Vincentius may also have been used. The only known persons named after Gregentios are two 19th-century monks of Mount Athos. The first was the archimandrite of Vatopedi in April 1842 and the second a monk of the Skete of Saint Anne who died in 1879 aged 69. Both monastic communities had copies of the Bios and Dialexis of Gregentios.