Our father among the saints, St. Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, reposed on this day in 379. Very few universal saints in the Orthodox Church have the epithet of “Great” appended to their first names. Besides Saint Basil, there are: Pope Gregory the Great (the Dialogist), Anthony the Great, Arsenios the Great, and Pachomios the Great. And that is it. St. Basil came from a family with Christian ancestry. In the 4th century, during his lifetime, the attitude toward baptism was in some respects similar to our attitude toward ordination into holy orders. People would receive baptism at a mature age as a conclusive act indicating a resolution to lead a responsible Christian life. St. Basil was baptized after receiving the best possible “Classical” education in Late Antiquity. He and his lifelong friend, St. Gregory of Nyssa, led an eremitic life until the former became a reader around 358–360. Thus began St. Basil’s ascent through the ranks of the hierarchy. Soon, St. Basil became a presbyter and an advisor to Archbishop Eusebios of Caesarea. In 370, following Eusebios’ death, St. Basil became Archbishop of Caesarea (modern Kayseri in Turkey). For the nine years of his episcopacy, St. Basil proved to be a holy hierarch, a “canon of the faith” in the words of the general troparion. He guided the Church through the murky waters of an era when Valent II, supported the Arians and when the church-political environment was plagued with the turmoil caused by·the West–East divide (“Meletian Schism”), the heretical Modalists (followers of Sabellian), and social crises (some of his flock had to sell some of their children to feed others). So, to return to our opening question: what made St. Basil “Great”? This man, who suffered from disease for most of his life, became a great teacher of the virtues. The superb education that he received, multiplied by his personal qualities, resulted in a precision of expression that found its way into his writings on doctrinal, exegetical, disciplinary, and ascetical matters. These, among other traits, led him to become one of the foremost teachers of the Orthodox Christian faith in the history of the Church.
Source:
Priestmonk Dionisii (Shlenov), “Vasilii Velikii,“ Pravoslavnaia Entsiklopedia. |
