Video Transcript: A Christian Family

We've been looking at the lives of some Christian heroines, unusual women. And we're going  to continue that. Just one more segment, to look at the Christian family a Christian family, the family of Basil and Emmelia, and their children, their children are Basil, the great the  theologian, and Gregory of Nyssa, and Macrina, their sister Macrina, I find her a really  fascinating person. And we have Gregory's Life of Macrina, which is really interesting  documents and one that you might want to read. The parents are Basil, and Emmelia, then  either either nine or 10 children that this two sources give two different numbers, it's nine or  10. Macrina is the oldest Basil is in there somewhere. Gregory who becomes Bishop of Nyssa,  and is known as Gregory of Nyssa, to distinguish him from Gregory Nazianzen Gregory  Nazianzen by the way, was a friend of the family and friend of Basil. Gregory Nazianzen and  Basil had studied together in Athens. And both came back as graduates, proud of themselves  and Basil says in Macrina, was the one who took him aside and sort of put him in his place,  older sister, others other names, we know that their children were Peter and Naucratius.  Naucratius was joined Macrina later on in establishing a double monastery. But he was killed  in a hunting accident and and died quite young. So we look to Macrina. Macrina as I said, is  the oldest of the family, she's the one who kind of takes responsibility for caring for the  younger children it's said that, that when the others were growing up, she was their nurse,  she was the one that that took care of the babies, helping her mother take care of all these  children. They are again fairly wealthy, and and have ownership of quite a bit of land. The  father, Basil, the elder died fairly early, leaving Macrina and leaving Emmelia as a widow with  was still raising children and, and Macrina is the one who, who really was her mainstay. Now,  as I said, when Basil came back from his graduate studies in Athens, his PhD in Athens, he  was he was really full of himself. For all the study he had done, he was the one who did more  of that kind of study than than anybody else in the family. And, and he says later that Macrina sort of took him aside and brought him down to earth, and showed him that the value in life  was not to be had in flaunting your studies, but rather humility and service of the Lord, which  was a great help to him later on, when he was chosen to be Bishop of Caesarea, of one of the  cities in the area. Macrina was the one who first embraced the monastic ascetic ideal. And  there was a whole network of people that you know, who were into ascetic life, they would,  they would write letters to each other, they would share these biographies these lives that  were written about their contemporaries. And so she could learn a great deal about how  asceticism was was being lived. And she was the one who first got the idea of wanting to have a monastery and she began living in ascetic life in right in the house, and I should say back up a bit, when she was about 12 or 13. She was engaged to be married to a very nice young man who would have been a wonderful husband. They, they were set for marriage, he died  suddenly, tragically. And when that happened, she just that was when she decided that's it.  God is calling me to the ascetic life. I'm not going to marry now. And she used as an argument that her her commitment to her to the young man who would have been her husband  continued into heaven. And so he was in heaven waiting for her and she's not going to take  another human husband. So she became her mother's constant companion. And she began  living an ascetic life at home. And then eventually, she convinced her mother to come with  her to found a monastery in Northern Asia Minor. And some distance from their home actually, but it was on their properties. They was on property that they owned, their household  servants, the female household servants followed them. And that's a story that's a pattern  that you see in a number of these people that their their slaves, basically, their, their  household, female slaves, become members of the monastery. And you often wonder how  much consent was involved in this, you know, when your, your slaveholder says you're going  to be in a monastery now. So that was what happened. But of course, other women joined  them, too. And she died in three 379. The year after her brother Basil died, he died quite  young, too. And Gregory of Nyssa, No, I'm sorry, I take it back. He Basil died in 379. And she  died in 381. The reason we know that is because Gregory of Nyssa was attending a council  that the the Council of Constantinople in 381, he attended that meeting and on his way back  home to his diocese, he stopped to see Macrina to visit her. And he said that their brother  Basil had just died. And he's on his way back from the council. So we know that it was 379  and 381. And, and he visits Macrina. And he finds her essentially dying. She's She's weak, and

she's she's on the way to death. And so he recounts the visits, the days he spent with her in  her monastery while she was in the process of dying. And he recounts all this in his Life of  Macrina, which is a really beautiful and telling story. But he wrote something else too on the  soul and resurrection. He This is a treatise that he wrote afterwards. And he sets that treatise  in the context of these daily visits he had with Macrina while she's on her deathbed. Now, he  certainly embellished this whole treatise. It's his theology that's in it. But he is attributing all  of the insights to her. And he called her at one point my teacher in everything. So here's  another case of a woman who is highly educated, and a woman of wisdom, who is recognized  by her family. And in this case by her brother, remember, Nonna, Gregory of Nezianzen's  mother who was recognized as teacher to her husband. And this is the sister who is the big  sister, who is the model in the teacher for her younger brother. Now, one of the interesting  things about the story is that there is a deaconess in the Macrina's monastery, her name is  Lampadion and it intrigues us what is the role of a deaconess in a women's monastery. And  there are some other references in other works that that seem to indicate that they would  have been liturgical leaders. There is another figure another woman named Olympias, who  was a wealthy woman in Constantinople, who founded a monastery and she herself was  ordained a deaconess and three others in her monastery and the, the way the biographer  says it is that they, that four of them were ordained so that the, the round of prayer could be  continuous. So that sounds as if they are dividing the A day into four segments and the  deaconesses responsible for the leading of prayer in in, in each of the segments that's, that's  at least a supposition. But here, there is a deaconess in the monastery. And it never quite  says that it never quite says that she's leading prayer. But she seems to be Macrina's  assistant. Whenever Gregory wants to know, what wouldn't Macrina really want it's  Lampadion who has the answer? She, she's there. She's present there all the time. She's the  one who is she's Macrina's assistant, and we don't know would she then become the, the  leader of the monastery after Macrina's death. That's not quite said. But there is the presence of this, this Deaconess in the Macrina's monastery, I might just open a little parenthesis here  too, we have another case of a deaconess in a monastery in Seleucia, in southern Turkey, at  the sanctuary of Thecla, St. Thecla was the most popular woman's saint in the early church.  And in the story of Thecla she's, she she may be a completely fictional character. We don't  know though there's been some argument recently that she really did historically exist. But  Thecla is a disciple of Paul. And she has various adventures. And at one point, Paul sends her  out, he says, Go and teach the Word of God. And Thecla goes out in there are various  legendary endings to her life, but from different places, but she's an apostle, commissioned  by Paul. So she has a sanctuary long after her death, if there was a death if she ever lived.  There's a sanctuary to her very popular place where pilgrims come. And there is a woman  named Egeria from from the West, probably from Spain, who was a pilgrim and she's all over  this part of the world. And when she goes to the sanctuary of Thecla, she encounters an old  friend named Marthanafmi who is a deaconess whom she had met in Jerusalem. She'd been to  Jerusalem already, but this is the place where Marthana lives in a monastery. And the whole  function of this sanctuary is to welcome pilgrims. So probably it is a monastery of women that provide hospitality for for women, pilgrims. So there you have another Deaconess who's  connected with a monastery. Okay, so close parenthesis on that. So back to Macrina. There  are stories recounted about her in Gregory's Life of Macrina of her having miraculous healing  powers. And one of the stories is very touching. And it is also indicative of how these  monasteries functioned. A couple husband and wife have a little girl who has some kind of  eye disease, she's a very young infant maybe. And she has some kind of eye problems, a  disease. They are visiting the monastery, and not for because of the child's illness. They're  there, they're on pilgrimage. And Macrina talks to them. And she says, Oh, I've got an eye  balm that I will give you before you leave. And she lays her hands on and blesses the child.  And they're occupied with other things and they leave the monastery and they're at some  distance and they realize they forgotten to pick up this balm. And they look at the child and  the eyes are healed. So there are stories like that about her that she had miraculous healing  power. And when she as she lay dying Gregory visits her every day and spend much time with her. And when eventually she does die, Gregory is in great grief, great grief, and it's the