Gregory's origins are a matter for scholarly dispute.[5][6] He is believed to have hailed from the region of
Tao or
Tayk, which had been ruled by Georgian
Bagratids of
kouropalatate of Iberia, later
annexed by the Byzantines to the
theme of Iberia in 1001. According to
Anna Comnena Gregory was "descended from a noble Armenian family."[7] According to N. Aleksidze, the only source that indicates his Armenian origin is Anna Comnena who was only three years old when Gregory died.[8] The 12-century
Armenian chronicler
Matthew of Edessa, wrote that he was of vrats, or "Georgian," origin, though here he was likely referring to Pakourianos' being part of the Georgian Orthodox Church rather than necessarily being an ethnic Georgian.[9] Gregory himself proclaimed that he belonged to "the glorious people of the
Iberians" and insisted his monks to know the
Georgian language.[10] Under Byzantine suzerainty, the population of Upper Tao identified itself as 'Georgian'. The élite of Tao (Basil Bagratisdze, P'eris Jojikisdze, Abas and Grigol Bakurianisdze) regarded Georgia as 'our country' and strove for its spiritual, cultural and political prosperity. Thus, he, like other representatives of the elite from the Tao region, considered Georgia his homeland and strove for its spiritual, cultural and political prosperity.[11]
Taking into account all the evidence available on Pakourianos, the scholar Nina G. Garsoïan proposed that "the most likely explanation is that [the Pakourian family] belonged to the mixed Armeno-Iberian Chalcedonian aristocracy, which dwelt in the border district of Tayk/Tao."[12]
Anna Comnena described Pakourianos as having a tiny frame but being a mighty warrior.[13]
Byzantine service
Since 1060 Gregory served in
Byzantine army. In 1064 he had achieved a significant position among the Byzantine military aristocracy, but failed at defending
Ani against the
Seljuk leader
Alp Arslan,[12] King
Bagrat IV of Georgia and Albanian King Goridzhan in the same year.[14] Since 1071 he was appointed as a Strategos (governor) of the
theme of Iberia. As the Seljuk advance forced the Byzantines to evacuate the eastern
Anatolian fortresses and the theme of Iberia, Gregory ceded control over
Kars and
Tao to King
George II of Georgia in 1074. This did not help, however, to stem the Turkish advance and the area became a battleground of the
Georgian-Seljuk wars.[15]
Afterwards he served under
Michael VII Doukas (
c.1071–78) and
Nikephoros III Botaneiates (
c.1078–81) in various responsible positions on both the eastern and the western frontiers of the empire. Later Gregory was involved in a coup that removed Nikephoros III. The new Emperor,
Alexios I Komnenos, appointed him "megas domestikos of All the West" and gave him many more properties in the
Balkans. He possessed numerous estates in various parts of the
Byzantine Empire and was afforded a variety of privileges by the emperor, including exemption from certain taxes. In 1081, he commanded the left flank against the
Normans at the
Battle of Dyrrachium. A year later he evicted the Normans from
Moglena. He died in 1086 fighting the
Pechenegs at the battle of Beliatoba, charging so vigorously he crashed into a tree.
Gregory was also known as a noted patron and promoter of Christian culture. He together with his brother Abas (Apasios) made, in 1074, a significant donation to the
Eastern OrthodoxHoly Monastery of Iviron on
Mount Athos and commissioned the regulations (typikon) for this foundation. He signed the
Greek version of the Typikon in
Armenian.[16][17][18] He also signed his name in
Georgian and
Armenian characters rather than Greek.[19] It is assumed that Pakourianos did not know Greek.[20]
Gregory Pakourianos and his brother Abas were buried in a bone-vault house near the
Bachkovo Monastery. The portraits of the two brothers are painted on the north wall of the bone-vault house.
Notes
^Georgian: გრიგოლ ბაკურიანის-ძე, Grigol Bakurianis-dze;
Greek: Γρηγόριος Πακουριανός, Gregorios Pakourianos;
Armenian: Գրիգոր Բակուրեան, Grigor Bakurean;
Bulgarian: Григорий Бакуриани
^Asdracha Catherine, La région des Rhodopes aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles: étude de géographie historique. Athen: Verlag der Byzantinisch-Neugriechischen Jahrbücher, 1976, pp. 74-75.
^(in Russian) Arutjunova-Fidanjan, Viada, ed., Tipik Grigoriia Pakuriana [The Typikon of Gregorius Pacurianus]. Yerevan, 1978, pp. 134-135, 249.
^Asdracha Catherine, La région des Rhodopes aux XIIIe et XIVe siècles, pp. 74–75.
^Kazhdan, Alexander. "The Armenians in the Byzantine Ruling Class Predominantly in the Ninth through Twelfth Centuries" in Medieval Armenian Culture, University of Pennsylvania Armenian Texts and Studies 6, eds. Thomas Samuelian and Michael Stone. Chico, CA: Scholars Press, 1983, pp. 443-444.
^Garsoïan, Nina G. "The Problem of Armenian Integration into the Byzantine Empire" in Studies on the Internal Diaspora of the Byzantine Empire.
Hélène Ahrweiler and
Angeliki E. Laiou (eds.). Washington D.C.: Harvard University Press, 1998, pp. 88-89, notes 138-140.
^Anna Comnena. The Alexiad. Translated by Elizabeth Dawes. London: Routledge, Kegan, Paul, 1928, p. 51.
^Nikoloz Aleksidze. The Narrative of the Caucasian Schism: Memory and Forgetting in Medieval Caucasia, Corpus Scriptorum Christianorum Orientalium. Louvain: Peeters, 2018, pp. 162-163
^On this, see
Matthew of Edessa (1991). Matteos Urhayetsi: Zhamanakagrutyun [The Chronicle of Matthew of Edessa] (in Armenian). Ed.
Hrach Bartikyan. Yerevan: Yerevan State University Press. pp. 160, 500, note 226.
^Browning, Robert. The Byzantine Empire, p. 126, The Catholic University of America Press, 1992
^Paul Lemerle. Le Monde Byzantin. Cinq études sur le XIe siècle Byzantin. Le Typikon de Grégoire Pakourianos (Décembre 1083). Édition CNRS. Paris, 1977, p. 157.
^Arutjunova-Fidanjan, Tipik Grigoriia Pakuriana, p. 120.
^Mango, Cyril Alexander. The Oxford History of Byzantium. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002, p. 12.
^Gautier, P., "Le typikon du sèbaste Grégoire Pacourianos." Revue des Etudes Byzantines 42 (1984), p. 158.
Chanidze, A., "Au sujet du batisseur de monastere de Petritsoni Grigol Bakourianis-dze (en Bulgarie)," BK 38 (1980), 36; idem, "Le grand domestique de l'occident, Gregorii Bakurianis-dze, et le monastere georgien fonde par lui en Bulgarie," BK 28 (1971), 134
(in Russian) Arutiunova-Fidanian, V. A. Tipik Grigoriia Pakuriana. Yerevan, 1978.
Comnena, Anna, “The Alexiad”, Translated by E.R.A. Sewter, Pengium Books Ltd., London, 1969, (reprinted in 2003), pp. 560.
Petit, L., Typikon de Grégoire Pacourianos pour le monastère de Pétritzos (Bachkovo) en Bulgarie, texte original, Viz. Vrem., XI, Suppl. no 1, SPB 1904, XXXII+63 p.
(in Russian)Marr, Nicholas. Н. Я. Марр. Аркаун – монгольское название христиан в связи с вопросом об армянах-халкедонитах (Византийский временник”, т. XII, С. Петербург, 1905. Отдельный оттиск). ( Arkaun, the Mongolian name of Christians in connection with the question of the Armenians-Chalcedonian. Saint-Petersburg, 1905, pp. 17–31 ).
Obolensky, D., Nationalism in Eastern Europe in the Middle Ages: Transactions of the Royal Historical Society, Fifth Series, Vol. 22, (1972), pp. 1–16
Ostrogorsky, G., Observations on the Aristocracy in Byzantium: Dumbarton Oaks Papers, Vol. 25, (1971), pp. 1–32
Shanidze, A., "The Georgian Monastery in Bulgaria and its Typikon: the Georgian Edition of the Typikon" (in Georgian and Russian)," Works 9 (1986), Tbilisi: Metsniereba. pp. 29-36
Toumanoff, Cyril. "Caucasia and Byzantium." Traditio 27 (1971), pp. 111–152.