Gregorio Christoforidis

He tends to people and gardens alike, hoping it will make him good in some other man's eyes. They question him and his faith. You do, too. The apparition will not be kind.

Gregorio was born in 1126.

He is 17 when Christoforos and Sybil die of disease. After the death of his father and sister, he leaves his secular life and enters monastic life alongside his mother, splitting all of their land that had come to support their modest life (two houses, three vineyards, and 5 olive fields) between the nunnery and the monastery. This came to be at the whim of his mother, consumed by faith and fear of losing his now only son to any other more dangers.

Gregorio stays at a recent monastery, built 200 years earlier, known for its leprosarium, which is what motivated its construction. There, he has not become a fully realised monk, handling smaller tasks like cleaning the sick and the gardens, in tandem with the monastic routine of prayer and community. The monastery is strict; it has to be to minimize contagion. Although warm, this contaminates the abbot’s personality, and he is sharp in criticism of those he believes enter the monastery for secular reasons.