Saint Gregory the Illuminator (alternate: Armenian: Գրիգոր Լուսաւորիչ translit. Grigor Lusavorich, Greek: Gregorios Phoster or Photistes), the founder and patron saint of the Armenian Apostolic Church, was born about 257.

He belonged to the royal line of the Arsacid Dynasty, being the son of a Parthian named Anak, who assassinated Chosroes I of Armenia, and thus brought ruin on himself and his family. His mother's name was Okohe, and the Armenian biographers tell how the first Christian influence he received was at the time of his conception, which took place near the monument raised to the memory of the holy apostle Thaddeus. Educated in Caesarea in Cappadocia by a Christian nobleman Euthalius, Gregory sought, when he came to man's estate, to introduce the Christian doctrine into his native land. At that time Tiridates III, a son of king Chosroes, sat on the throne. Influenced partly by the fact that Gregory was the son of his father's enemy, he subjected him to much cruel usage, and imprisoned him for fourteen years. It would be useless to recount the various forms of torture which the orthodox accounts represent the saint to have endured without permanent hurt; almost any one of his twelve trials would have been certain death to an ordinary mortal. But vengeance and madness fell upon the king, and at length Gregory was called forth from his pit to restore his royal persecutor to reason, by virtue of Gregory's saintly intercession.

The cause of Christianity was now secured; king and princes and people vied with each other in obedience to Gregory's instruction. As a result, in 301, Armenia became the first country to adopt Christianity as its state religion. (More recent research puts the date at 314.) Convents, churches and schools were established. In 302, Gregory received consecration as Patriarch of Armenia from Leontius of Caesarea. In 318 Gregory appointed his son Aristaces to be his successor. About 331 he withdrew to a cave in the mountain Sebuh in the province of Daranalia in Upper Armenia, and there he died a few years later, unattended and unobserved. When it was discovered he was dead his corpse was removed to the village of Thodanum or Tharotan. The remains of the saint were scattered far and near in the reign of Zeno. His head is believed to be now in Italy, his right hand at Etchmiadzin, and his left at Sis. It is almost impossible to get at Gregory's real personality through the tangled growth of ecclesiastical legend; but he would appear to have possessed some of that consideration for expediency which is so frequently of service to the reformer. While he did his best to undermine their system, he left the old pagan priests in enjoyment of their accustomed revenues.

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