Saint Macrina the Younger

Saint Macrina the Younger lived in the fourth century in Asia Minor. She was the elder sister of Saints Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, and Peter of Sebaste, and on the family estate by the river Iris in Pontus she formed a community of women living by prayer and work. The Roman Martyrology commemorates her on July 19 as a virgin learned in the Holy Scriptures and an example of desire for God.

She was the firstborn child of Basil the Elder and Emmelia, and her grandmother was Saint Macrina the Elder. Gregory of Nyssa writes that their mother had four sons and five daughters. The year of Macrina’s birth is not certain: about 327 or about 330 is given. Her mother taught her to read herself, but instead of pagan poetry she gave her the Holy Scriptures, especially the Book of Wisdom and the Psalms, which the girl recited at set times of the day.

When she was about twelve, her father betrothed her to a young man of good family who was just finishing his studies. The young man, however, died suddenly before the wedding. Macrina considered herself bound by the promise given, refused other suitors, and resolved to remain a virgin at her mother’s side. She helped her mother bring up the younger children, and she cared for her youngest brother, Peter, from infancy. When Basil came back from his studies proud of his talent as an orator, his sister persuaded him to give up a worldly career. Benedict XVI recalled that Basil followed her example and that Basil and Macrina watched over Gregory’s Christian upbringing.

After her father’s death she settled with her mother on the family estate at Annesi by the river Iris. She persuaded her mother to give up her former way of life and to treat the maidservants and slave women as sisters, equal to themselves. The house became a community of women who prayed, worked, and meditated on the Holy Scriptures together. After Emmelia’s death Macrina led the community. She renounced her share of the property and supported herself by the work of her own hands.

About nine months after Basil’s death, Gregory, returning from a synod in Antioch, visited his sister, whom he had not seen for nearly eight years. He found her gravely ill, lying on boards on the ground. They spoke about the soul, death, and the resurrection. Gregory described this conversation in the dialogue “On the Soul and the Resurrection,” in which he calls his sister the Teacher. Benedict XVI quoted her prayer from her last moments, in which she asked Christ for forgiveness so that she might stand before him without blemish. She died in the evening, when a lamp was brought in. The year 379 is most often given, although the chronology of her last years is not entirely certain.

Gregory and the local bishop, Araxius, carried her body to the chapel of the holy martyrs, where their parents were already buried. Her brother later wrote her life, which remains almost the only source of knowledge about her, and presented her as a model of a life given to God in virginity. Macrina has been venerated as a saint since antiquity, long before canonization processes came into being.