The Life of St. Basil the Great

(January 1) 

St. Basil is one of the three preeminent Fathers of the Eastern Church, known collectively as the Cappadocian Fathers. For some, he is the uniquely dominant figure of the Christian philosopher of the dogma of the Trinity, the incomparable monastic, the ultimate benefactor, the great protector of the true faith, the uncompromising cleric and the true theologian. His outstanding qualifications as an ecclesiastical statesman and organizer, as a great exponent of Christian doctrine and as a second Athanasius in the defense of orthodoxy, as the Father of oriental monasticism and reformer of the liturgy, warrant the conferring such a title as ‘the Great’, which very few bear.

 Born at Caesarea in Cappadocia about 330 in a family no less renowned for its Christian spirit than for its nobility and wealth, he received his elementary training from his father, St. Basil the Elder, a famous rhetorician at Neocaesarea on Pontus who had been a pupil of St. Gregory the Wonderworker. His grandmother was St. Macrina the Elder. His mother St. Emmelia, daughter to a martyr, herself gave birth to ten children, three of whom became bishops: St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nyssa and St. Peter of Sebaste, while her oldest daughter is well known as St. Macrina the Younger, a model of the ascetic life, founder of monasticism for women.

 St Basil attended for his higher education the schools of rhetoric at his native Caesarea, at Constantinople, and finally, after 351, at Athens, which in the fourth century A.D., was a university town, an ancient and distinguished center of classical learning. There he met St. Gregory of Nazianzus—with whom he entered upon a life-long friendship—and the nephew of Emperor Constantine, Julian, who later ascended the throne at Constantinople.

 The three Cappadocians—St. Basil the Great, his brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and his friend, St. Gregory of Nazianzus (the Theologian)—were steeped in the heritage of classical Greek literature and philosophy and would later bring its riches into their work as Christian pastors and teachers, thinkers and writers. At Athens, they learned the art of rhetoric, one of the primary forms of cultural expression at the time. Its practice included the composition of finely wrought artistic prose and also skill in the public speaking that was used in law courts and public administration but was a popular performing art as well. They each became master rhetoricians, though St. Gregory of Nazianzus’ writings exhibit more exuberance and poetic brilliance. St. Basil’s prose is characterized by balance and sobriety, by clarity and relative simplicity.

 St. Basil returned to his native city about 356 and began his career as a rhetorician, which he renounced soon, to embrace a life entirely devoted to God. He describes this spiritual awakening in his Epistle 223, 2:

 ‘I had wasted much time on follies and spent nearly all my youth in vain labors, and devotion to the teachings of a wisdom that God had made foolish (1 Cor. 1:20). Suddenly I awoke as out of a deep sleep. I beheld the wonderful light of the Gospel truth, and I recognized the nothingness of the wisdom of the princes of this world that was come to naught (1 Cor. 2:6). I shed a flood of tears over my wretched life, and I prayed for a guide who might form in me the principles of piety.’ 

 His first step was to receive the sacrament of Baptism, the next to journey through Egypt, Palestine, Syria and Mesopotamia, in order to meet the most famous ascetics. Their lives inspired him:

 ‘I admired their continence in living, and their endurance in toil. I was amazed at their persistency in prayer, and at their triumphing over sleep. Subdued by no natural necessity, ever keeping their soul’s purpose high and free in hunger and thirst, in cold and nakedness, they never yielded to the body; they were never willing to waste attention on it. Always, as though living in a flesh that was not theirs, they showed in very deed what it is to sojourn for a while in this life, and what to have one’s citizenship and home in heaven. All this moved my admiration. I called these men’s lives blessed, in that they did indeed show that “they bear about in their body the dying of Jesus”. And I prayed that I too, as far as in me lay, might imitate them.’

 On his return he divided his fortune among the poor and founded a men’s ascetic community on lands owned by his family at Annesi, across the river Iris from where his sister St. Macrina the Younger, had already turned their home into a women’s community. It was to this community that his friend from his school days, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, soon came to also devote his life to a monastic existence.

 St. Basil went on to found or organize ascetic communities for men and women across Cappadocia, for which he wrote extensive instructions, promoting the cenobitic way of life and focusing on prayer and manual labor to support themselves and each other. Significantly, however, he integrated ascetic groups into the life of the Christian community as a whole, and he harnessed their energies to the tasks of caring for the sick and poor and educating the young. His gifts of insight and leadership in community life made him one of the leading founders of Eastern Christian monasticism, and his ascetical writings, soon translated into Latin, subsequently became influential in the West as well. 

After a few years in Annesi, St. Basil was persuaded by Eusebius, bishop of Caesarea, to come to Caesarea, the capital of Cappadocia, and be ordained priest. He assisted the bishop in political negotiations and theological controversy and built charitable institutions to care for the hungry and ill during a severe famine. He ‘was all in all to him [Eusebius], a good counselor, a skillful helper, an expounder of the Scriptures, an interpreter of his duties, the staff of his old age, the prop of his faith, more trustworthy than all his clerics, more experienced than any layman’, as St. Gregory of Nazianzus reports (Oration 43, 33).

 He became bishop of Caesarea himself in 370, a post he held until his death, probably on January 1, 379. He soon won the love of his people. He established hospitals for the sick, homes for the poor, hospices for travelers and strangers, so that St. Gregory of Nazianzus spoke of an entire ‘new city’. There grew up, literally, a village of buildings outside Caesarea, named Basilias in his honor—a hospital, several houses for widows, an orphanage, a leprosarium, several inns where poor travelers could sleep free of charge, and restaurants where anyone could eat without paying.

 As an ecclesiastical statesman he corresponded with many civic, cultural and church leaders throughout the empire. He wrote theological treatises advocating the doctrine of the Trinity and led the Homoiousian party in its reconciliation with Athanasius’ strict Nicene contingent, as they made a common front against Arians and neo-Arians.

 Besides encouraging social justice on behalf of the poor, St. Basil took a great interest in personal morality and spirituality. His homilies on virtues and vices show considerable philosophical learning and psychological insight. His writings reveal him to be a contemplative, not merely a man of action. It is easy to understand why this is so, for both his action and his contemplation receive their power from his deep commitment to, his close proximity to, his personal relationship with his Lord and God. He seeks always to live a serious Christian lifestyle in practice and to teach others to do likewise.

 St. Basil was a tireless worker, often remaining sleepless for many nights, trying to do his work. No matter how trivial, he personally wrote and answered letters to all those who wrote to him. Most of these letters have been translated into English in four volumes and can be found in the Loeb Classics of Harvard University. Reading such letters to widows, orphans and those who weakened in their faith only brings us closer to the greatness of the man.

 He was the incomparable and tireless minister of Christ, giving sermons at night for those who could not hear him during the day. He paid particular attention to the youth of his day, delivering orations, sermons and talks about matters of concern to them. One of his celebrated sermons involves the Exegesis of Genesis. Given over a period of nine days, St. Basil attempted to dissolve the conflict of time in real terms. He pointed out to the skeptics that God’s concept of time and that of humans is not necessarily the same. He proposes that the seven days in which the creation occurred, in all probability, are not limited to days of twenty-four hours each. Given in the fourth century, the sermons would almost satisfy the skeptics of the twenty-first.

 St. Basil left his own Divine Liturgy which, because of its length, is performed in the Orthodox Church about ten times annually. Surprisingly enough, this liturgy was his attempt to shorten earlier, longer versions of lengthy liturgies which he felt only kept people away from church services, and defeated the purpose and intent of the liturgy.

 St. Basil lived during the great heresy of Arius when passions were still hot over issues of the Divinity of Christ and the nature of the Holy Spirit. His answer to the issue of the day, and one of his greatest contributions to the Church, are his dogmatic treatises on the Trinity and the Holy Spirit and its consubstantiality, upon which the Church bases her teachings. His unswerving support of orthodoxy put him in direct conflict with Emperor Valens, a devout follower of Arianism. Wishing to put St. Basil in line, the Emperor sent the Magister Modestus to coerce St. Basil to accept the Emperor’s point of view. A man who did not suffer fools too well, but who, in obvious monastic humility, had to mind his temper, St. Basil remained undaunted. When Modestus threatened him with confiscation and exile, his reply, as recorded by St. Gregory of Nazianzus, was this:

 ‘The confiscation of goods does not harm one who has nothing, unless perchance, for these tortures and sufferings you need a cloak and a few books which are my whole life. Exile I do not know, for I am bound to no one place: not only this my own land in which live, but the whole world into which I may be banished, I hold as my own, for the whole world is of God, whose dweller and sojourner I am. These tortures, what harm could they do me, not having a body, except so to speak, the first blow. Of these things only are you lord. But death would be an act of kindness for it will bring me nearer to God, for Whom I live and for Whom I have been created and to Whom in the greater part I have died and towards Whom I hasten.’

 Modestus, astonished at such words, responded: ‘No one until now has spoken to me in such a manner and with such liberty of words’. To this St. Basil replied:

 ‘Perhaps you have never met a bishop before.... Where God is endangered and exposed, there all other things are considered as nothing. Him alone do we look to. Fire, swords, beasts and the instruments for tearing the flesh are wished for by us as delights more than horrors. Afflict us with such tortures, threaten, do all that you can now devise, enjoy your power. Also, let the Emperor hear this, that at all events you will not persuade us nor win us over to the impious doctrine [Arianism], though you threaten with cruel deeds’. 

 This intrepidity and resoluteness made such an impression on the Emperor, that he abandoned the attempt to subdue the saint and rescinded the decree for his banishment.

These were years of intense activity, even as, through it all, he struggled repeatedly with poor health. The long hours he kept, the sleepless nights, hard work and great fasts he followed, the stresses of his office and the controversies he faced, finally wore him down. St. Basil the Great died of kidney complications on January 1, 379. During the funeral, the crowds were so overwhelming in numbers that hundreds died of asphyxiation. Those were considered as fortunate in having accompanied the great Father to heaven. His feast day is celebrated on the anniversary of his repose (January 1).

 St. Basil’s main concern was the unity of the Church. The almost total lack of such unity among the Christians of the East, due to Arianism and neo-Arianism, and between the bishops of the East and West, caused him to make great efforts, in deed and in word, to bring about the unity he understood the One, Holy, Catholic and Apostolic Church was meant to manifest. He lived to see at least the dawning of better days, when the Emperor Valens died on August 9, 378, and external conditions permitted the restoration of peace in the empire. St. Basil soon reposed, too, but two years later the Second Ecumenical Council met at Constantinople, by which the Emperor Theodosius the Great brought order and unity to the Church, opening the doors to all who adhered to the faith of Nicaea. There is no doubt that St. Basil had laid the foundation for this great moment in the history of Christianity, and it is yet one more reason we refer to him, with great reverence and devotion as to a teacher and a father, as ‘the Great’.

St. John of Kronstadt

Saint John of Kronstadt, born as Ivan Ilyitch Sergieff, the son of poor peasant folk, was born on the 19th of October 1829 in the little village of Soura, in the province of Arkhangelsk in the far north of Russia. His parents, poor and simple though they were, took great pains with his education, both spiritual and temporal. From school, where he had gone to the top of his class, he went to the seminary. From there he was sent in 1851, at government expense, to the Theological Academy of Saint Petersburg. While he was there his father died, and it was with great thankfulness to God that he accepted the post of registrar.

 Having considered becoming a monk, and going to eastern Siberia as a missionary, he came to the conclusion that there were many people around him as unenlightened as any pagan, and he decided to work for their salvation, after a dream in answer to prayer, in which he saw himself officiating in some unknown cathedral.

 Soon after completing his studies he married Elisabeth, daughter of the Archpriest K. P. Nevitzki, and he was ordained priest in December 1855. Appointed as assistant priest at Saint Andrew's Cathedral, Kronstadt, when he entered it for the first time he recognized it as the church he had seen in his dream; and there, first as curate, and afterwards as rector, he served throughout the fifty-three years of his ministry. Cherishing a lofty ideal of the priestly vocation, he continued nightly to study and pray that he might perfect himself in it, while during the day he devoted himself to the many poor of his parish.

 Father John, whose predecessors, apparently, had hardly even dared to penetrate the worst parts of the town, spent much of his time there, striving to heal bodies and souls alike, attracting to himself first the children, and then, through them, their parents. Often he found no time to eat until the late evening, and even then he would sometimes be summoned out again, and not return before the small hours; he gave away his own shoes, he gave away the housekeeping money: his wife gradually accustomed herself to it, and finally became something like his keeper.

 In 1857 he was invited to teach the scripture in the municipal school at Kronstadt, and he accepted with joy, for he loved children, and always took great pains with them. When his fame had spread and he was constantly visiting Saint Petersburg, then to his own, his colleagues and pupils great regret, he was forced to abandon his teaching post.

 Another object of Father John's concern and labor was the removal of the widespread poverty that afflicted Kronstadt. At first he gave these beggars money for food and shelter, but he soon came to see that this was not merely useless, but positively harmful. In 1868 he conceived the idea of founding a House of Industry, comprising a number of workshops, a dormitory, a refectory, a dispensary, and a primary school. He formed a committee, and appealed for funds. His appeal was answered by rich and poor from all over Russia, and the House of Industry was founded in 1873. Father John administered a total of over $25,000 a year in numerous charities, half of it in Kronstadt. 

There is an attractive power in the personality of Father John of Kronstadt, in his portrait, the magnetism of his writings, and in his diary My Life in Christ. There is a peaceful and consoling quality in the notes of his diary, not to mention the very subjects of his talks, which spiritually exalt, uplift, and strengthen.

 In the early 1890s Father John became well known, and people from all over Russia came to him every day in thousands. The bishops treated him with high respect. He was already greatly venerated at the time he died, on 20 December 1908.

 He was canonized by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside Russia in 1964, and by the Russian Orthodox Church in 1990. Archbishop John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco (later glorified as a Saint too) played an active role in preparation of St. John's canonization. His life and work are commemorated on the feast days of December 20 and October 19. 

Quotes from St. John 
 "When you are praying alone, and your spirit is dejected, and you are wearied and oppressed by your loneliness, remember then, as always, that God the Trinity looks upon you with eyes brighter than the sun; also all the angels, your own Guardian Angel, and all the Saints of God. Truly they do; for they are all one in God, and where God is, there are they also. Where the sun is, thither also are directed all its rays. Try to understand what this means."

 "There is nothing impossible unto those who believe; lively and unshaken faith can accomplish great miracles in the twinkling of an eye. Besides, even without our sincere and firm faith, miracles are accomplished, such as the miracles of the sacraments; for God's Mystery is always accomplished, even though we were incredulous or unbelieving at the time of its celebration. "Shall their unbelief make the faith of God without effect?" (Rom. 3:3). Our wickedness shall not overpower the unspeakable goodness and mercy of God; our dullness shall not overpower God's wisdom, nor our infirmity God's omnipotence." — My Life in Christ 

"Oh, what great happiness and bliss, what exaltation it is to address oneself to the Eternal Father. Always, without fail, value this joy which has been accorded to you by God's infinite grace and do not forget it during your prayers; God, the angels and God's holy men listen to you."

 "The enemy of our salvation especially strives to draw our heart and mind away from God when we are about to serve Him, and endeavours to adulterously attach our heart to something irrelevant. Be always, every moment, with God, especially when you pray to Him. If you are inconstant, you will fall away from life, and will cast yourself into sorrow and straitness."

 "Do not be despondent when fighting against the incorporeal enemy, but even in the midst of your afflictions and oppression praise the Lord, Who has found you worthy to suffer for Him, by struggling against the subtlety of the serpent, and to be wounded for Him at every hour; for had you not lived piously, and endeavored to become united to God, the enemy would not have attacked and tormented you."

 "Do not fear the conflict, and do not flee from it; where there is no struggle, there is no virtue. Our faith, trust, and love are proved and revealed in adversities, that is, in difficult and grievous outward and inward circumstances, during sickness, sorrow, and privations."

 Troparion (Tone 1)
 “As a zealous advocate of the Orthodox faith, as a caring Solicitor for the land of Russia, faithful to the rules and image of a pastor, preaching repentance and life in Christ, an awesome servant and administer of God's sacraments, a daring intercessor for people's sake, O Good and righteous Father John, healer and wonderful miracle-worker, the praise of the town of Kronstadt and decoration of our Church, beseech the All-Merciful God to reconcile the world and to save our souls!”

St. John Maximovitch of Shanghai and San Francisco

 "Holiness is not simply righteousness, for which the righteous merit the enjoyment of blessedness in the Kingdom of God, but rather such a height of righteousness that men are filled with the grace of God to the extent that it flows from them upon those who associate with them. Great is their blessedness; it proceeds from personal experience of the Glory of God. Being filled also with love for men, which proceeds from love of God, they are responsive to men’s needs, and upon their supplication they appear also as intercessors and defenders for them before God." -St. John Maximovitch 

 What better description could be found to portray the essence of a man whose love for Christ drew him to such heights of spiritual perfection that he enkindled the faith of thousands from East to West? The life of St. John Maximovitch demonstrates more vividly than any words that true Christianity far exceeds the bounds of human “goodness”. Here is a shining reflection of the supernatural love of God which works miracles, a living proof that the burning faith of the early Christian saints still warms the earth at a time when the love of many has grown cold. 

St. John did not isolate himself from the world, but he was not of this world. First and foremost he was a man of prayer. He completely surrendered himself to God, presenting himself as a “living sacrifice” and he became a true vessel of the Holy Spirit. His work as an apostle, missionary and miracle worker continues even now.

 This saint of the latter times was born June 4, 1896 in the province of Kharkov. At baptism he was given the name Michael. As a child he was serious for his years and he later wrote: “From the first days when I began to become aware of myself, I wished to serve righteousness and truth. My parents kindled in me a striving to stand unwaveringly for the truth, and my soul was captivated by the example of those who had given their lives for it.”

 Following the desire of his parents, he entered law school in Kharkov. He was a naturally gifted student but spent more time reading the Lives of Saints than attending academic lectures. “While studying the worldly sciences,” he wrote, “I went all the more deeply into the study of the science of sciences, into the study of the spiritual life.”

 After the Revolution, he was evacuated together with his family to Belgrade where he entered the faculty of theology at the University. In 1926, a year after his graduation, he was tonsured a monk and given the name John, after his own distant relative, St. John of Tobolsk. In November of that same year, he was ordained hieromonk. Soon he became a teacher at the Serbian Seminary of St. John the Theologian at Bitol. More than once the bishop there, St. Nikolai Velimirovich, would say, “If you wish to see a living saint, go to Fr. John.”

Ascetic
 It was his own students who first became aware of Vladika’s great feat of asceticism. At night they noticed that Vladika would stay up, making the rounds of the dormitories and praying over the sleeping students. Finally, it was discovered that he scarcely slept at all, and never in a bed, allowing himself only an hour or two each night of uncomfortable rest in a sitting position, or bent over on the floor, praying before icons. This ascetic feat he continued for the rest of his life.

 At the age of 38 he was elevated to the episcopate of the Russian Orthodox Church Abroad, and was sent to Shanghai, China. There he restored Church unity, took an active interest in the religious education of youth, encouraged and participated in various charitable organizations founded an orphanage, and himself gathered sick and starving children off the streets. He always wore clothing of the cheapest Chinese fabric and often went barefoot, sometimes having given his sandals away to some poor man. Vladika celebrated Divine Liturgy and received Holy Communion daily, as he did for the rest of his life.

Wonderworker
 In Shanghai it became evident that Vladika was not only a righteous man, but a true ascetic, a man of prayer and a wonderworker. Once in Shanghai Vladika John was asked to the bed of a dying child, whose case had been called hopeless by the physicians. Entering the apartment, Vladika John went straight to the room in which the sick boy lay, although no one had managed yet to show him where this was. Without examining the child. Vladika immediately fell down in front of the icon in the corner, which was very characteristic of him and prayed for a long time. Then, assuring the relatives that the child would recover, he quickly left. And in fact the child became better towards morning and he soon recovered, so that a physician was no longer needed.

Vladika loved to visit the sick and if the condition of a patient would become critical, he would go to him at any hour of the day or night to pray at his bedside. There were cases when patients would cry out to Vladika in the middle of the night from their hospital beds, and from the other end of the city Vladika would come.

Man of Prayer
With the coming of the communists, the Russians in China were forced once again to flee, most through the Philippines. At one time 5,000 of the refugees were living in an International Refugee Organization camp on the island of Tubabao, located in the path of the seasonal typhoons.

When the fear of typhoons was mentioned by one Russian to the Filipinos, they replied that there was no reason to worry, because “your holy man blesses your camp from four directions every night.” They referred to Vladika John, for no typhoon struck the island while he was there.

In trying to resettle his flock, Vladika went to Washington, and through his intervention, almost the whole camp was miraculously able to come to America - including his orphanage.

 In 1951 Vladika was sent to Western Europe. Here too his reputation for holiness spread - and not only among the Orthodox. In one of the Catholic churches of Paris, a priest strove to inspire his young people with these words: “you demand proofs, you say that now there are neither miracles nor saints. Why should I give you theoretical proofs, when today there walks in the streets of Paris a saint - Saint Jean Nu-Pieds (St. John the Barefoot)”.

 Finally, in 1962, Vladika was sent to San Francisco in response to the urgent request of thousands of Russians who had known him in Shanghai. The Russian community was bitterly divided over the building of a new cathedral. Vladika became embroiled in this dispute and this eventually led to his persecution. But the Truth finally won out and a measure of peace was restored, the paralysis of the community ended, and the cathedral was finished.

Alive after Death
On June 19/July 2, 1966, during a visit to Seattle with the wonderworking Kursk Icon of the Mother of God, Vladika peacefully gave his soul to the Lord Whom he had served so faithfully during his earthly life. His unembalmed body was flown to San Francisco where for six days it lay in the cathedral in an open coffin, while thousands of the faithful came to say their last farewell to the beloved archpastor. Even after the sixth day it was noticed that there was no sign of decay. 

Archbishop John was laid to rest in a small basement chapel under the altar of the cathedral after the San Francisco Board of Supervisors amended the City law to permit the burial of prelates in their cathedrals. His sepulchre became a place of pilgrimage for hundreds of people in need of his strong intercession before the throne of God. The many cases of answered prayer only confirm Vladika’s words to one of his devoted servants when, after his death, he appeared to her in a dream and said: “Tell the people: although I have died, I am alive!”

 On June 19/July 2, 1994 St. John Maximovitch was canonized in San Francisco and his relics rest today in the Joy of All Who Sorrow Cathedral for all the faithful to venerate.

 -From “St. Herman Press" (St. Herman of Alaska Brotherhood)