The Commemoration of St. Basil the Great #
The future hierarch was born around the year 330 in Caesarea of Cappadocia (Asia Minor, now Turkey). His grandfather and grandmother had suffered persecution for being Christians under the Roman emperor Diocletian. His uncle was a bishop, as were two of his brothers—Gregory of Nyssa (ca. 335–394) and Peter of Sebaste (ca. 340–391), both of whom are counted among the saints. Basil’s father, a rhetorician and jurist, wished for his son to follow the same path in life. Basil received what was perhaps the finest education available at the time, studying in Caesarea and Constantinople, and later at the academy in Athens. There, he became acquainted with Gregory the Theologian (329–389).
Upon returning to Caesarea, Basil pursued secular affairs. However, under the influence of his deeply devout sister Macrina (324/327/330–380), he adopted a stricter way of life and, together with some of his friends, left the city and settled on his family’s estate in Pontus. In 357, he began an extended journey visiting Egyptian monasteries, and in 360 accompanied the Cappadocian bishops to the Council in Constantinople. Shortly before the death of Bishop Dianius of Caesarea, Basil was ordained a priest and became an assistant to Bishop Eusebius, who succeeded Dianius. Desiring a more ascetic life, Father Basil withdrew into the wilderness, where he began to organize monastic life.
In 328, the Arian emperor Valens (who reigned until 378) came to power and began to oppress Orthodox Christians. Under these circumstances, Bishop Eusebius sought support from Basil, who had already shown himself to be active and zealous. In 365, Bishop Eusebius returned to Caesarea and took charge of the diocese. Basil the Great authored three works condemning Arianism. Though several bishops opposed him, after Eusebius’s death in 370, Basil was made Archbishop of Cappadocia and began his struggle against Arianism in Asia Minor. This led to conflict with Emperor Valens. When the emperor arrived in Cappadocia, St. Basil refused to acknowledge the Arian teaching. In response, Valens divided Cappadocia into two provinces, reducing the size of Basil’s diocese and weakening his position. Nevertheless, Basil managed to install his supporters as bishops in key cities: Sts. Gregory of Nyssa and Gregory the Theologian.
Emperor Valens died in 378 at the Battle of Adrianople. St. Basil, whose health had been weakened by his labors, died on the first day of 379. Among his theological legacy are nine homilies on the Hexaemeron (Six Days of Creation); sixteen homilies on various Psalms; five books defending the Orthodox teaching on the Holy Trinity; twenty-four homilies on various theological topics; seven ascetical treatises; monastic rules; a rule for ascetics; two books on Baptism; a book on the Holy Spirit; several sermons, and 366 letters addressed to various individuals. Some of these letters were incorporated into the Church’s canonical law, forming the “Canons of St. Basil the Great” included in the Church’s Kormchaia (Book of Canons).
St. Amphilochius, Bishop of Iconium (ca. 340–394), said in his funeral oration for Basil the Great: “He has always been, and will always remain, the most saving teacher for Christians.”
St. Basil is called “the Great,” “the glory and beauty of the Church,” “the luminary and eye of the universe,” and “the teacher of dogmas.” The Equal-to-the-Apostles Grand Prince Vladimir received the name Basil at baptism and dedicated several churches to the saint (more on these below). Other Russian rulers were also named Basil in his honor, including Vladimir Monomakh, Basil I, and Basil II. St. Basil the Great is especially venerated by the Russian people, alongside St. Nicholas the Wonderworker. A relic of St. Basil is kept at the Pochaev Lavra. His honorable head is preserved at the Lavra of St. Athanasius on Mount Athos, and his right hand is kept in the altar of the Church of the Resurrection of Christ in Jerusalem. His memory is commemorated on January 14 (January 1 old style) and February 12 (January 30 old style), on the Feast of the Three Hierarchs.
The first church built by St. Prince Vladimir on the site of a pagan shrine in Kiev was dedicated to St. Basil the Great. The prince also built a church in honor of St. Basil in Vyshgorod near Kiev, where the Passion-bearer princes Boris and Gleb were buried (their relics were later moved). In the 12th century, churches dedicated to St. Basil the Great were built in Kiev, Great Novgorod, Ovruch, and in Smyadyn near Smolensk. From the 13th to the 15th centuries, churches in his honor were established in Tver (before 1390), Pskov (before 1377), and several other cities of Rus’.
The Church of St. Basil the Great in the city of Ovruch (now in Ukraine) is part of the architectural ensemble of the St. Basil’s Convent. It was built in 1190 by Prince Rurik Rostislavich (d. 1212). The construction was overseen by the architect Peter Miloneg. In 1321, the Church of St. Basil in Ovruch was almost completely destroyed by the Lithuanians, but it was restored between 1907 and 1909 by the renowned architect A.V. Shchusev. The interior was decorated in the ancient Russian style, and original fragments of the ancient frescoes have been preserved.
There also exists an ancient church of St. Basil in the city of Vladimir-Volynsky (now Ukraine), whose origins various scholars date to between the 12th and 14th centuries. It has undergone multiple reconstructions and today is quite distant in appearance from its original form.
One fairly well-known example is the Church of St. Basil “on the Hill” (na Gorke) in the central part of Pskov. A wooden church originally stood on this site in the 14th century, built on a hill in what was once marshland, near a stream called Zrachka. In 1375, a wall of the Middle Town was constructed along the stream, and opposite the church, the Vasilyevskaya Tower with a belfry was built. In 1413, a stone church replaced the wooden one. In the late 15th to 16th centuries, chapels and a gallery were added.
In the Tver coachmen’s quarter (yam slobody) of Moscow, there had long been a church dedicated to St. Basil the Great. The first mention of it as a wooden structure appears in the census of 1620–1621. In 1671, the quarter was destroyed by fire. In 1688, construction began on a stone church dedicated to St. Basil of Caesarea. In the first half of the 19th century, it was replaced by a monumental five-domed building in the Classical style. The church was closed and destroyed in 1934.
In Kyiv, on Tryokhsvyatytelska Street (in the very center, near St. Michael’s Golden-Domed Monastery), there stood a church until the 1930s dedicated to the Three Hierarchs — Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom. It had previously been called the Church of St. Basil. It was built in the early 1180s by Prince Svyatoslav Vsevolodovich on his own estate and, according to the Chronicle, was consecrated in 1183. After the Tatar-Mongol invasion, the church was not restored until the 16th century, but it burned down in the mid-17th century. At the end of the 17th century, it was rebuilt once more (in effect, newly constructed). In 1935–1936, it was dismantled.
A “warm” (i.e., heated, or “winter”) church in honor of St. Basil the Great was likely consecrated at the end of the 18th century as part of the parish Church of Saints Cosmas and Damian in the historically significant Old Believer village of Belaya Krinitsa in Bukovina (then part of the Austrian Empire, now Ukraine). During restoration in the 1980s, it was re-consecrated in honor of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker.
In the village of Zolotilovo in Ivanovo Oblast (until the 1920s — Kostroma Province), a church of the Russian Orthodox Old-Rite Church (RPSC) in honor of St. Basil the Great was built in 1915 through the efforts of the future hierarch Geronty (Lakomkin; in the world, Priest Grigory). Sadly, the church is currently abandoned and falling into ruin.
According to the Iconographic Original (Ikonopisny Podlinnik) of the 16th century (as well as earlier depictions of the saint, some of which are listed below), St. Basil the Great was portrayed as a “middle-aged man,” with a long, narrow black beard, wearing a light-colored phelonion decorated with crosses. With his right hand he blesses the people, and in his left he holds the Gospel. He was originally depicted frontally, in bust form, as on the 7th-century icon from the Monastery of St. Catherine on Mount Sinai. Later, full-length icons of the saint appeared. In 11th-century icons, St. Basil is depicted in prayer, holding an open scroll.
At the end of the 11th century in Byzantium, a feast in honor of the Three Hierarchs — Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom — was established. After that, joint depictions of the Three Hierarchs began to spread. In Old Rus’, such icons have been known since the 15th century. They were often part of so-called Menaion tablets. Among the most famous of these are the “Trinity” icon (from the Trinity–Sergius Lavra, second quarter of the 15th century) and the “Sophia” icon from Great Novgorod (late 15th century).
In late-Byzantine art of the Palaiologan period (14th century), compositions titled “The Discourse of the Three Hierarchs” or “The Grace-Filled Fruits of Teaching” appeared. One example is among the frescoes of the Church of the Archangels in Lesnovo, Macedonia (1347–1349). There, St. Basil the Great is shown seated at a lectern from which streams of water — representing the “rivers of doctrine” — are flowing. Such images also appeared in Rus’ during the 16th–17th centuries under the title “The Discourse of Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom,” or simply “Teaching” or “The Good Fruits of Teaching.” One can see such an image, for example, in the wall painting by the famous master Dionysius in the Cathedral of the Nativity of the Theotokos at the Ferapontov Monastery (1502).
In the Muscovite manuscript tradition, there exist illustrated Lives of St. Basil the Great. A particularly rich iconographic example (225 miniatures in leaf format) is found in the illuminated hagiographic manuscript from the third quarter of the 16th century in the collection of M.A. Obolensky. Russian manuscripts on this subject created in the 17th century are marked by a large number of hagiographic scenes and considerable ornamentation.