Saint Basil the Great
Saint Basil the Great
Born around 330 A.D. in Ceasarea the second of ten children to a wealthy Christian family. His grandmother St. Macrina the Elder, his parents Basil the Elder and his mother Emmelia, two brothers Gregory of Nyssa and Peter of Sebaste and a sister Macrina the younger have all been acclaimed saints. Basil was educated first in Caesarea and later Constantinople and Athens. Although wealthy in the worlds goods Basil chose an austere life and in 367-8 A.D. when Cappadocia suffered a severe and widespread famine, Basil sold his family's extensive land holdings in order to buy food for the starving. He also built hospitals for the care of the sick, housing for the poor and a hospice for travelers.
In 370 St. Basil's life changed course when he was chosen to succeed Eusebius as bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Here he found himself in the thick of the fray between those Orthodox Catholic Christians who confessed Christ's full divinity and the various Arian parties who taught that Jesus was not equal to God the Father and those called "Pneumatomachi" (fighters against the spirit) who denied the full divinity of the Holy Spirit.
In order to address these and other attacks upon the Orthodox faith it was necessary to define and explain unclear theological concepts to dispel suspicion and to bring together true belivers both East and West, who supported the work of the Nicaea Council. These theological and canonical challanges were resolved by the combined work of St. Basil the Great, his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa and his best friend St. Gregory of Nazianzen ( known as the Cappadocian Fathers ) and resulted in new theological terminology supporting the full divinity of Jesus Christ, the Holy Spirit and the rightness of worshiping them together as one with God the Father. This doctrinal clairification became universally accepted throughout the Church and the Nicene doctrine was set forth in the language of the Cappadocians.
It needs to be noted that the reunion and mutual recognition of the Eastern and Western churches which took place after Nicene was primarly brought about by the efforts of St. Basil the Great whose life time goal was to gather together the divided forces of the Church in order to denounce the heresies of his day and address the suffering of the poor with a strong and orginized body, united by strength of faith and purpose.