Basil the Great
4th-century bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and one of the foundational theologians of the Eastern Orthodox Church.
Basil the Great was a 4th-century bishop, theologian, and ecclesiastical organizer whose work shaped Eastern Orthodox Christianity for sixteen centuries. Born around 329 AD into a prominent Christian family in Caesarea in Cappadocia (modern-day Kayseri in central Turkey), he received an elite classical education at Constantinople and Athens, where he studied alongside Gregory of Nazianzus, who would become his lifelong friend. Returning to Cappadocia, Basil chose monastic life over a secular career, founded one of the earliest Christian monastic communities, and was ordained bishop of Caesarea in 370. As bishop he wrote prolifically on theology and ascetical practice, organized the diocese against the Arian controversy that dominated 4th-century Christianity, and established one of the first hospitals and poorhouses in the Christian East (the Basileias). His treatise On the Holy Spirit (c. 375 AD) established the foundational positions for Orthodox theology of the Trinity that the Council of Constantinople (381 AD) subsequently confirmed. Together with his brother Gregory of Nyssa and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus, Basil is one of the three Cappadocian Fathers, the central theologians of the post-Nicene Eastern Church. The Anaphora that bears his name is one of the two principal Eucharistic Prayers of the Eastern Orthodox Church and is used at the Divine Liturgy of Saint Basil on ten major days of the liturgical year.