pat loughery

One of the three great figures in Orthodox Christianity is St. Basil the Great (along with St. John Chrysostum and St. Gregory of Nazienza, also called Gregory the Theologian). Basil, born 329CE is known for his unbowed devotion to life with Christ.

He forsake a wealthy life, gave what he had to the poor (echoing the much later St. Francis), and then sought the wisdom of the Christian hermits living in the Cappodicia region, eventualy establishing the first monastic rule which later influenced Benedict of Nursia.

Basil was a profound thinker. Biographers write that he excelled in variety of ways: as philosopher, philologist, orator, jurist, scientist and archaeologist, and he possessed profound knowledge in astronomy, mathematics and medicine.

After visits to the monastic hermits near Jerusalem, Basil returned to his home in the Cappadocia region determined to imitate what he had seen of the ascetic life along with his friend Gregory the Theologian. Basil drew with him a small community of hermits who asked him to describe the ascetic life to them. He responded by writing a collection of rules of the moral life in two forms – the Short Rules and later expanding them as the Long Rules.

In so doing was the father of community-based monasticism (known as cenobitic monasticism, in contrast to hermitic or eremitic monasticism).

Here is a section of his Introduction to the Ascetical Life, which he wrote to encourage Christians to forsake being united with the world’s culture and instead be united with Christ in the way of the desert monks and hermits.

“Come, then, soldier of Christ…! Set before yourself a life without house, homeland, or possessions. Be free and at liberty from all worldly cares, lest desire or anxiety fetter you …. Follow the Heavenly Bridegroom; withstand the onset of invisible foes; wage war against principalities and powers, driving them out first from your own soul …. Earth did not accept you as a citizen, but heaven will welcome you. The world persecuted you, but the angels will bear you aloft to the presence of Christ. You will even be called friend by Him and will hear the longed for word of commendation:

‘Well done, good and faithful servant, brave soldier and imitator of the Lord, follower of the King, I shall reward you with My own gifts and I shall pay heed to your words even as you did to Mine.’

Basil went on to be ordained as a priest and theologian. His words were profound in the 4th century battles against heresies: Arianism, Appolarianism, Nestorianism, Eutycianism.

As a priest and agent of truth against misconceptions of God, Basil continued to live as an ascetic. He rejected offers from well-meaning churches who sought to pay him handsomely to educate their children, preferring to remain living a simple lifestyle.

Basil organized the church’s resources during a great famine to feed the poor, which also became a traditional example for subsequent Christian monastics. His concern for social causes remain a clear mark of Basil’s theology of community.

The devotion which contemporary Orthodox Christians hold for St. Basil cannot be overstated. Orthodox monasteries hold to the Rules of St. Basil rather than St. Benedict even though Benedict’s work falls early in church history, five centuries before the East-West split. Basil’s words are still influential today;