From Your Parish Librarian

Saint for This Week ....

Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea (329-379) Feast day: June 14.

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Six of Basil’s family members are also venerated as saints of the Church: his grandmother, Macrina the Elder (hid in the forest and caves near the Black Sea from Roman persecution, surviving on wild game and vegetables); his father, Basil; his mother, Emmelia; his older sister, Macrina the Younger; and his younger brothers, Gregory of Nyssa (an early architect of the doctrine of the Trinity) and Peter of Sebaste (mostly a solitary ascetic who assisted Basil and Macrina in the management of their monasteries).

Basil was entrenched in academia when his beloved younger brother, Naucratius (a desert hermit who cared for the elderly) died refocusing him towards the Church. At that same time, his older sister Macrina founded the first monastic order for women. Encouraged by her, 28-year-old Basil was baptized and soon after ordained a deacon.

Inspired by his sister’s example, Basil founded a men’s monastery. Assisted by his good friend, the brilliant theologian of the early Church, Gregory of Nazianzus (c329-390), Basil compiled “The Longer and Shorter Rules” which transformed solitary anchorites and desert hermits into a disciplined community of prayer and work.

Basil was wrenched out of his quiet, peaceful, isolated monastic life when Bishop Eusebius of Caesarea (c260-339 and known as the primary historian of the early Church) called him to defend the Church against the persecution of the Arian Emperor, Valens. Basil decided the way to fight against the heresy of Arianism was by succeeding Bishop Eusebius as bishop.

Bishop Basil wrote a treatise, “On the Holy Spirit,” maintaining that both the language of Scripture and the faith of the Church require that the same honor, glory and worship are to be paid to the Spirit as to the Father and to the Son.

He asserted that it was proper to adore God in liturgical prayer, not only with the traditional words, “Glory to the Father through the Son in the Holy Spirit,” but also with “Glory to the Father with the Son together with the Holy Spirit.”

After Basil died at 50, his will stated that his family estate become a village with housing, a hospital and a Church for the poor and a hospice for travelers.

Two years after Basil died, the Council of Constantinople affirmed the Nicene faith.

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From a blog by Todd Granger; edited by Bonnie Bonham, St Timothy’s Parish Librarian. If you would like to receive a short, saint biography almost daily in your email, sign up “For All The Saints” here: In the right margin, you will find a black <Subscribe> button to fill in with your email address.

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