Macrina the Younger

Macrina the Younger was born in the fourth century into a prominent Christian family of Cappadocia in Asia Minor. She was the eldest of ten children of Basil the Elder, a noted rhetorician and advocate, and Emmelia, who came from a family that had suffered in the persecutions. Her grandmother Macrina the Elder had been instructed by Gregory Thaumaturgus and had preserved the faith during times of trial. Among Macrina's brothers were Basil, later bishop of Caesarea and a leading architect of monastic rules and Trinitarian theology; Gregory, later bishop of Nyssa and an important theologian and mystical writer; and Peter, later bishop of Sebaste. Another brother, Naucratius, withdrew to a life of solitude and charity before dying young. The family possessed substantial estates in Cappadocia and Pontus and used their resources for the support of the poor and the Church.

Macrina received her education at home under her mother's direction. Her studies centered on the Scriptures, especially the Wisdom of Solomon and the Psalter, rather than on the pagan classics that formed the usual curriculum for children of her class. At about the age of twelve she was betrothed to a young man who was preparing for a legal career. When he died unexpectedly, Macrina announced that she regarded the betrothal as equivalent to marriage and that she would remain faithful to her intended husband as his widow. She thereafter rejected all further offers of marriage and embraced a life of consecrated virginity, prayer, and asceticism. After her father's death she took a principal part in managing the household, in the education of her younger brothers and sisters, and in the administration of the family property.

Under Macrina's influence the family estate at Annisa on the River Iris in Pontus was gradually transformed into a monastic settlement. There she lived with her mother Emmelia and a community of women that included former servants now treated as equals. The women supported themselves by their own work, held goods in common, and devoted themselves to the liturgical recitation of the Psalms and to works of charity. Macrina also played a decisive role in the conversion of her brother Basil from a promising secular career in rhetoric to the monastic and later episcopal life; he established a monastery for men on the opposite bank of the river. Gregory of Nyssa later described his sister as his teacher in philosophy and as a living example of the Christian life.

In 379, after the death of Basil, Gregory visited Macrina at Annisa and found her already near death. Despite severe illness she continued to speak with composure on the soul, the resurrection, and the hope of eternal life. Gregory later composed two works based on this encounter: a biographical Life of Macrina and a philosophical dialogue On the Soul and the Resurrection, in which Macrina appears as a Christian Socrates instructing her brother. She died in the summer of that year and was buried by Gregory in the family tomb beside their parents, in the shrine of the Forty Martyrs that stood on the estate. From an early date she was venerated as a saint in both the Eastern and Western churches, with her feast observed on 19 July. Her life remains a primary source for the history of female monasticism in fourth-century Asia Minor and for the intellectual and spiritual authority exercised by consecrated women in the early Church.