January: Day 1: Teaching 5:
Saint Basil the Great
(The Imitation of His Life)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
Saint Basil the Great
(The Imitation of His Life)
By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko
I. The true follower of Jesus Christ is Saint Basil, Archbishop of Caesarea, whose memory is celebrated on this day. The Holy Church has honored this Saint with the title "the Great" for his holy life, work and teaching. Saint Basil was born in 329 to a noble and pious family, known for their good life and Christian direction in the upbringing of their children. Having loved God, His holy law and the teaching of Christ from early childhood, Saint Basil decided to devote his life to serving the Church. But to fight the pagans and heretics who were then attacking the Church, careful scientific preparation was needed, and so Saint Basil leaves his parents' home and goes to study in distant lands, visits cities famous for their schools and teachers, and diligently studies science, and is extremely careful in choosing friends and becomes friendly only with the later great father of the Church, Saint Gregory the Theologian, whom he loved so much that it seemed that their soul and heart were one. Then he travels through Syria, Palestine and Egypt to get acquainted with the lives of great Christian ascetics. Upon returning to his homeland, Saint Basil himself withdrew into the desert; here, in freedom, he practiced prayer, reading the word of God, contemplation of God and exploits, until the evil attacks of the impious Arians called him to the defense of the Church of Christ, first in the rank of Presbyter, and then Archbishop of Caesarea. When the impious Emperor Valens wanted to forcibly introduce Arianism, which humiliated the dignity of the Son of God and considered Him only one of the most perfect creations of God, Saint Basil, a strict zealot for the purity of Orthodox teaching, was summoned to trial before the proud prefect of the emperor, Modestus. The latter, pointing out to the holy man the agreement of many bishops of the East with the will of the emperor, demanded the same consent from him. "My emperor does not want, and I cannot worship a creature: I myself am God's creation," said Basil. When Modestus, irritated by the intransigence and bold answers of the Saint, asked him: "Are you not afraid of my power?" Basil objected: "What should I be afraid of?" - "I will order your property to be turned over to the treasury, you yourself to be sent into exile, given over to torture, put to death." - "Threaten with something else, if you can: he who has no property cannot even turn anything over - I have only a hair shirt and a few books. I do not consider exile as exile: the whole earth is God's, and I am a stranger and a pilgrim. Death is a blessing for me: it will sooner bring me to God, for Whom I live, serve and for the most part I have already died." The fearlessness of Saint Basil amazed Modestus and Valens, and they left him alone. In the struggle with heretics and pagans, in the oral and written edification of his flock, in works of mercy, in persecutions for the truth, the greater part of the life of the great Saint passed, ending his difficult and fruitful earthly career on the first day of January 379. Saint Basil the Great wrote many famous works and sermons defending and clarifying the truth of the Christian faith, and composed the rite of the Divine Liturgy, which, by the way, is celebrated on the present day of his memory.
II. Since we have the apostolic commandment to imitate the life of the saints, let us emulate the pious life of Saint Basil the Great.
a) First, let us imitate the love of Saint Basil the Great for education. The word of God and the common sense of man indicate strong incentives to study science. The search for truth and knowledge makes a person “wise.” “Better is knowledge than choice gold,” says the Proverbs of Solomon; "for wisdom is better than rubies, and none of all that is desired can be compared with it...” (Prov. 8:10-11, 33). “Take heed to yourself and to the doctrine. Continue in them, for in doing this you will save both yourself and those who hear you,” writes the Holy Apostle Paul to Timothy (1 Tim. 4:16).
b) Secondly, let us imitate Saint Basil the Great in being cautious in friendship. This Holy Father, during his school education in the city of Athens (in Greece), had as his only friend Saint Gregory the Theologian, who also came here for scientific education.
This is how these Christian youths saved themselves from the temptations that surrounded them. “We knew,” says Saint Gregory, “only two roads: one that led us to the church and to the holy teachers who preached there, and the other that led us to the academy (higher school), to the teachers of literature and lovers of wisdom. As for those roads by which people go to worldly festivals, to spectacle, to feasts, we did not know them and did not want to know them. Knowing that bad examples are like infectious diseases, we did not communicate with those of our companions who were depraved, insolent and disorderly, but associated only with the moderate, modest and pious.”
Young Christians! “Do not be carried away by indiscriminate attachment to your companions.”
How many young people perish from frivolous imitation of their companions! "Whoever touches pitch," says the wise Sirach, "will be blackened, and whoever associates with the proud will become like him" (13:1). "He who walks with the wise," testifies the wise Solomon, "will be wise, but he who is friends with fools will be corrupted" (Prov. 13:21).
c) Thirdly, let us, following the example of Saint Basil the Great, be true confessors of the faith of Christ, let us be Christians not only in name, which is of no use to us, but mainly in life. Only by a pious life and true faith can we glorify our Father in heaven, thereby being found worthy of eternal life. "Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 5:16).
And when, for confessing the faith of Christ in word and deed, we can bring upon ourselves contempt, abuse, ridicule and even open hostility from those who have fallen away from the faith through the deception of the enemy of our salvation, then let us remember the formidable prophetic words of our Lord and Savior: “Whoever is ashamed of Me and My words in this adulterous and sinful generation, of him also the Son of man will be ashamed when He comes in the glory of His Father with the holy angels” (Mark 8:38).
III. Through the prayers of Saint Basil the Great, may the Lord grant us grace-filled help to become established in the rules of piety taught by his holy life.
Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
