Commemorated January 1 (New Calendar) January 14 (Old Calendar)
The Church also keeps him on January 30 (New Calendar) February 12 (Old Calendar), with Saints Gregory the Theologian and John Chrysostom.
The Latin Church keeps him on January 2. Older Latin books also kept June 14.
Saint Basil was born in Caesarea of Cappadocia about the year 330, the son of Basil and Emmelia. He left the schools of the world, lived as a monk beside the Iris, and was made archbishop of his city. He would not yield the faith of Nicaea to the Arian emperor Valens. He reposed on the first of January, 379, in his forty-ninth year. They buried him in the church of the martyr Eupsychius.
The words of Saint Basil
“The essence of philosophy is that it gives a man the remembrance of death.” (Answering Eubulus, who had asked what philosophy is.)
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“No one can serve two masters.” (To Eubulus, when he set the sweetness of this world against the consolation that comes from heaven.)
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“Blessed be our God from this time forth and forever, Who has illumined your mind with the light of truth, Eubulus, and led you from extreme error into the knowledge of His love. If you wish to live with me, as you have said, I will tell you how we must care for our salvation, escaping the nets of this life. Let us sell all our possessions and give the money to the poor, and go ourselves to the holy city to see the wonders there; there we shall be strengthened still more in the faith.” (After Eubulus asked for birth of water and the Spirit.)
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“Never will it be that I, turning aside from the true Christian faith, become a follower of the impious Arian teaching; for I inherited from the fathers the faith in the consubstantial, which I confess and glorify.” (When he was pressed to abandon the homoousios.)
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“If you take my property, you will not enrich yourself by it, and you will not make me poor. I think you have no need of these worn clothes of mine and of the few books that are all my wealth. There is no exile for me, because I am not bound to a place, and the place where I live now is not mine, and any place to which I am sent will be mine. Better to say: every place is God’s, wherever I am a stranger and a sojourner. And what can torments do to me? I am so weak that only the first blow will be felt. Death is a kindness to me: it will bring me sooner to God, for Whom I live and labor, and toward Whom I have long been striving.” (To the prefect Modestus, who named confiscation, exile, torture, and death.)
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“Yes, because you have not happened before this to speak with a bishop.” (When Modestus said that no one had ever spoken to him so boldly.)
The words of others in the reading
“O Basil, revealed from heaven! Through you I believe in the One God the Father Almighty, Maker of all things, and I look for the resurrection of the dead and the life of the age to come. Amen. And here is the proof of my faith in God: I will spend the rest of my life with you, and now I desire birth of water and the Spirit.” (Eubulus, after the three days of talk.)
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“No one has spoken to me so boldly until now!” (Modestus, after Basil answered him.)
Who stood with them
His father was also named Basil. Emmelia was his mother. The first seeds of piety were sown by his grandmother Macrina. His elder sister Macrina kept the ascetic life. Gregory, later bishop of Nyssa, and Peter, later bishop of Sebaste, were his brothers. Gregory the Theologian was his friend from the schools of Athens and from the desert. Eubulus walked with him after their talk and asked for baptism. Modestus was the prefect who threatened him. Valens was the emperor who wanted the Church Arian. Gregory the Theologian came to the burial and wept.
He would not trade the faith he had received for a safer place to stand.
We ask his prayers when power names exile and death, and when a Christian is told that peace is cheaper than the word consubstantial.
Pray for us
Troparion, Tone 1
“Your proclamation has gone out into all the earth, which was divinely taught by hearing your voice, expounding the nature of creatures, ennobling the manners of men. O holy father of a royal priesthood, entreat Christ God that our souls may be saved.”
Kontakion, Tone 4
“You were revealed as the sure foundation of the Church, granting all mankind a lordship which cannot be taken away, sealing it with your precepts, O venerable and heavenly Father Basil.”
The hymns of the second feast, January 30, are those of the Three Hierarchs.
Troparion — Tone 1
“Let us who love their words come together, honoring with hymns, the three greatest luminaries of the Three-Sunned divinity: / Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, together with the renowned John Chrysostom, of golden speech. / They have illumined the entire world with the rays of divine doctrines; / they are sweetly-flowing rivers of wisdom, / who with divine knowledge have watered all of creation with clear streams; / for they always intercede with the Trinity for us.”
Kontakion — Tone 2
“O Lord, You have received the Holy and God-proclaiming heralds, the crown of Your Teachers, / for the enjoyment of Your good things and for repose; / for You have accepted their sufferings and labors above every sacrifice, / for You alone glorify Your Saints.”
Saint Basil, pray for us.
Sources
St. Demetrius of Rostov, Lives of the Saints, January 1. https://azbyka.ru/otechnik/Dmitrij_Rostovskij/zhitija-svjatykh/2
Orthodox Church in America, Saint Basil the Great, Archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2026/01/01/100003-saint-basil-the-great-archbishop-of-caesarea-in-cappadocia
Orthodox Church in America, Synaxis of the Ecumenical Teachers and Hierarchs: Basil the Great, Gregory the Theologian, and John Chrysostom. https://www.oca.org/saints/lives/2026/01/30/100350-synaxis-of-the-ecumenical-teachers-and-hierarchs-basil-the-great
Orthodox Encyclopedia, Василий Великий. https://www.pravenc.ru/text/150791.html
Orthodox Encyclopedia, calendar: 14 января (1 января). https://pravenc.ru/calendar/2026/01/14.html
Orthodox Encyclopedia, calendar: 12 февраля (30 января). https://pravenc.ru/calendar/2026/02/12.html
Also in the Latin books
Catholic Encyclopedia, St. Basil the Great. https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/02330b.htm
Vatican News, Sts. Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzus, 2 January. https://www.vaticannews.va/en/saints/01/02/sts–basil-the-great-and–gregory-nazianzus–bishops-and-doctors.html
This site is a lamp, not a parish. Listen to the life. Then find a living Orthodox church and ask a priest to pastor you. https://pieceofhumanity.com/find-a-parish/
Updated 09/2026