Saint Basil the great.

Basil was born into the wealthy Cappadocian Greek family of Basil the Elder, and Emmelia of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, around 330. He was one of ten children, and his parents were known for their piety. His maternal grandfather was a Christian martyr, executed in the years prior to Constantine I's conversion. His pious paternal grandmother, Macrina, a follower of Gregory Thaumaturgus (who had founded the nearby church of Neocaesarea), raised Basil and four of his siblings who also are now venerated as saints: Macrina the Younger, Naucratius, Peter of Sebaste, and Gregory of Nyssa.

Basil received more formal education in Caesarea Mazaca in Cappadocia (modern Kayseri) around 350–51. There he met Gregory of Nazianzus. Gregory went to Alexandria, while Basil went to Constantinople for further studies, including the lectures of Libanius. The two later met again in Athens and became fast friends. There they met a fellow student who would become the emperor Julian the Apostate. Basil left Athens in 356, and after travels in Egypt and Syria, he returned to Caesarea. For around a year he practiced law and taught rhetoric.

Basil's life changed radically after he encountered Eustathius of Sebaste, a charismatic bishop and ascetic.
After his baptism, Basil travelled in 357 to Palestine, Egypt, Syria and Mesopotamia to study ascetics and monasticism. He distributed his fortunes among the poor and went briefly into solitude near Neocaesarea of Pontus (modern Niksar) on the Iris. Basil eventually realized that while he respected the ascetics' piety and prayerfulness, the solitary life did not call him. Eustathius of Sebaste, a prominent anchorite near Pontus, had mentored Basil. However, they also eventually differed over dogma.

Basil instead felt drawn toward communal religious life, and by 358 he was gathering around him a group of like-minded disciples, including his brother Peter. Together they founded a monastic settlement on his family's estate near Annesi. His widowed mother Emmelia, sister Macrina, and several other women, joined Basil and devoted themselves to pious lives of prayer and charitable works (some claim Macrina founded this community).

Here Basil wrote about monastic communal life. His writings became pivotal in developing monastic traditions of the Eastern Church. In 358, Basil invited his friend Gregory of Nazianzus to join him in Annesi. When Gregory eventually arrived, they collaborated on Origen's Philocalia, a collection of Origen's works. Gregory decided to return to his family in Nazianzus.

Basil attended the Council of Constantinople (360). He at first sided with Eustathius and the Homoiousians, a semi-Arian faction who taught that the Son was of like substance with the Father, neither the same (one substance) nor different from him.

In 362, Bishop Meletius of Antioch ordained Basil as a deacon. Eusebius then summoned Basil to Caesarea and ordained him as presbyter of the Church there in 365. Ecclesiastical entreaties rather than Basil's desires thus altered his career path.

Basil and Gregory Nazianzus spent the next few years combating the Arian heresy, which threatened to divide Cappadocia's Christians. In close fraternal cooperation, they agreed to a great rhetorical contest with accomplished Arian theologians and rhetors. In the subsequent public debates, presided over by agents of Valens, Gregory and Basil emerged triumphant. This success confirmed for both Gregory and Basil that their futures lay in administration of the Church. Basil next took on functional administration of the city of Caesarea. Eusebius is reported as becoming jealous of the reputation and influence which Basil quickly developed and allowed Basil to return to his earlier solitude. Later, however, Gregory persuaded Basil to return. Basil did so and became the administrator for the Diocese of Caesarea.

In 370, Eusebius died, and Basil was chosen to succeed him, and was consecrated bishop on 14 June 370. It was then that his great powers were called into action. Basil was generous and sympathetic. He personally organized a soup kitchen and distributed food to the poor during a famine following a drought.

His letters show that he actively worked to reform thieves and prostitutes. They also show him encouraging his clergy not to be tempted by wealth or the comparatively easy life of a priest, and that he personally took care in selecting worthy candidates for holy orders. He preached every morning and evening in his own church to large congregations. In addition to all the above, he built a large complex just outside Caesarea, called the Basiliad, which included a poorhouse, hospice, and hospital, and was compared by Gregory of Nazianzus to the wonders of the world.

Basil corresponded with Pope Damasus in the hope of having his aid and encouragement against triumphant Arianism; the pope, however, cherished some degree of suspicion against the Cappadocian Doctor.

Basil died before the factional disturbances ended. He suffered from liver disease; excessive ascetic practices also contributed to his early demise. Historians disagree about the exact date Basil died. The great institute before the gates of Caesarea, the Ptochoptopheion, or "Basileiad", which was used as poorhouse, hospital, and hospice became a lasting monument of Basil's episcopal care for the poor. Many of St. Basil's writings and sermons, specifically on the topics of money and possessions, continue to challenge Christians today.

Saint Gregory Nazianzus

Saint Gregory, known as doctor of the Church, was born at Arianzus, in Asia Minor in 325 and died at the same place in 389. His father was originally a member of the heretical sect of the Hypsistarii, or Hypsistiani, and was converted to Catholicity by the influence of his pious wife.

Gregory and his brother were sent to a famous school at Caesarea, capital of Cappadocia, and educated by Carterius, probably the same one who was afterwards tutor of St. John Chrysostom. Here commenced the friendship between Basil and Gregory which intimately affected both their lives, as well as the development of the theology of their age. From Caesarea in Cappadocia, Gregory proceeded to Caesarea in Palestine, where he studied rhetoric under Thespesius; and thence to Alexandria, of which Athanasius was then bishop, through at the time in exile.

He was not baptized in infancy, though dedicated to God by his pious mother. He received the sacrament on his return to Nazianzus some years later. At Athens Gregory and Basil, who had parted at Caesarea, met again, renewed their youthful friendship, and studied rhetoric together under the famous teachers Himerius and Proaeresius. Among their fellow students was Julian, afterwards known as the Apostate, whose real character Gregory asserts that he had even then discerned and thoroughly distrusted him. The saint's studies at Athens extended over some ten years; and when he departed in 356 for his native province, visiting Constantinople on his way home, he was about thirty years of age.

Later on, he arrived at Nazianzus, where his parents were advanced in age, Gregory, who had by this time firmly resolved to devote his life and talents to God, anxiously considered the plan of his future career. His yearnings were for the monastic or ascetic life, though this did not seem compatible either with the Scripture studies in which he was deeply interested, or with his filial duties at home. As was natural, he consulted his beloved friend Basil in his perplexity as to his future; and he has left us in his own writings an extremely interesting narrative of their association at this time, and of their common resolve to quit the world for the service of God alone.

Basil retired to Pontus to lead the life of a hermit; but finding that Gregory could not join him there, came and settled first at Tiberina, near his own home, then at Neocæsarea, in Pontus, where he lived in holy seclusion for some years, and gathered round him a brotherhood of cenobites, among whom his friend Gregory was for a time included. After a sojourn here for two or three years, during which Gregory edited, with Basil some of the exegetical works of Origen.

On his return home Gregory was instrumental in bringing back to orthodoxy his father who, perhaps partly in ignorance, had subscribed the heretical creed of Rimini; and the aged bishop, desiring his son's presence and support, overruled his scrupulous shrinking from the priesthood, and forced him to accept ordination, probably at Christmas, 361.

Wounded and grieved at the pressure put upon him, Gregory fled back to his solitude, and to the company of St. Basil; but after some weeks' reflection returned to Nazianzus, where he preached his first sermon on Easter Sunday, and afterward wrote the remarkable apologetic oration, which is really a treatise on the priestly office, the foundation of Chrysostom's "De Sacerdotio", of Gregory the Great's "Cura Pastoris", and of countless subsequent writings on the same subject.

During the next few years Gregory's life at Nazianzus was saddened by the deaths of his brother Caesarius and his sister Gorgonia, at whose funerals he preached two of his most eloquent orations, which are still extant. About this time Basil was made bishop of Caesarea and Metropolitan of Cappadocia, and soon afterwards the Emperor Valens, who was jealous of Basil's influence, divided Cappadocia into two provinces.

At the end of 375 he withdrew to a monastery at Seleuci, living there in solitude for some three years, and preparing (though he knew it not) for what was to be the crowning work of his life. Basil died by the end of this period. Gregory's own state of health prevented his being present either at the deathbed or funeral; but he wrote a letter of condolence to Basil's brother, Gregory of Nyssa, and composed twelve beautiful memorial poems or epitaphs to his departed friend.

He proceeded to Constantinople early in the year 379 and began his mission in a private house which he describes as "the new Shiloh where the Ark was fixed", and as "an Anastasia, the scene of the resurrection of the faith ". Not only the faithful Catholics, but many heretics gathered in the humble chapel of the Anastasia, attracted by Gregory's sanctity, learning and eloquence; and it was in this chapel that he delivered the five wonderful discourses on the faith of Nicaea -- unfolding the doctrine of the Trinity while safeguarding the Unity of the Godhead -- which gained for him, alone of all Christian teachers except the Apostle St. John, the special title of Theologus or the Divine.

He also delivered at this time the eloquent panegyrics on St. Cyprian, St. Athanasius, and the Machabees, which are among his finest oratorical works. Meanwhile he found himself exposed to persecution of every kind from without, and was actually attacked in his own chapel, whilst baptizing his Easter neophytes, by a hostile mob of Arians from St. Sophia's, among them being Arian monks and infuriated women. He was saddened, too, by dissensions among his own little flock, some of whom openly charged him with holding Tritheistic errors.

A saint first, and a theologian afterwards, Gregory in one of his early sermons at the Anastasia insisted on the principle of reverence in treating of the mysteries of faith, and also on the purity of life and example which all who dealt with these high matters must show forth if their teaching was to be effectual.

Other Saints of the Day
1. Saint Martinius
2. Saint Munchin
3. Saint Adelard
4. Saint Aspasius
5. Saint

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