Senator and prefect of Rome, then in succession monk, cardinal and pope, St. Gregory governed the Church from 590 to 604. England owes her conversion to him. At a period when the invasion of the barbarians created a new situation in Europe, he played a considerable part in the transitional stage, during which a great number of them were won for Christ. At the same time he watched over the holiness of the clergy and the preservation of ecclesiastical discipline, together with the temporal interests of his people of Rome and the spiritual interest of the whole of Christendom. To him the liturgy owes several of its finest prayers, and the name “Gregorian chant” recalls this great Pope’s work in the development of the Church’s chant. His commentaries on the Holy Scripture exercised a considerable influence on Christian thought, particularly in the Middle Ages. Together with St. Ambrose, St. Augustine and St. Jerome he is one of the four great Doctors of the Latin Church.