| Having some spiritual perspective on the current worldwide pandemic would be helpful in appreciating how the human family is dealing with it. In this regard, the Orthodox Christian Church, from its early days, has played a major role in restoring healing and wholeness, not only to the human soul, but to the human physical person as well. It brings to mind a paraphrase of an ancient Roman adage: “Animus sanus, in corpore sano.” (“A healthy soul in a healthy body.”) The person who stands out in this early major effort is our holy father St. Basil of Caesarea (“the Great.”) Knowing this history can give us hope, give us an appreciation for our own health, and provides “something to grab on to” in our quest for peace of mind and heart during these turbulent times.
Christianity began caring for the sick and poor in ways that those people had never received before the work of St. Basil. Basil was born into a Christian family, obtained a liberal arts education in Athens along with emperor Julian before he became Caesar, followed the divine calling to the ministry of the church, and effected change within Roman society that still survives in modern times. His Christianity was what led him to establish hospices and to care for the poor when in AD 368–69 a horrible famine afflicted Cappadocia. Basil’s response to the famine was an effort of the entire culture. St. Gregory of Nazianzus, a contemporary of St. Basil and one of the three Cappadocian Fathers along with him, wrote a eulogy of Basil where he stated that he “was a standard of virtue to us all.” Basil’s rearing and pedigree prepared him to be the benevolent agent that he was in his later life and in Byzantine society. By this time in Christian history, Christians had begotten Christians while in the New Testament appeared the making of Christians from Jewish or pagan inclinations. Moreover, Constantine had abolished the persecution of Christians and had shown considerable favor toward them by the time St. Basil was born. Basil’s grandmother (Macrina) had been converted by disciples of the third-century bishop St. Gregory Thaumaturgus—who learned in a school established by Origen. The Christian lineage to Basil from his grandmother proved orthodox enough—spiritual lineages were distinguished in the early centuries of Christianity if for no other reason than to establish orthodoxy. Basil, therefore, was born into a pious Christian fami.ly shortly after the Council of Nicaea (ca. 325). St. Gregory noted that Basil’s parents were pious Christians, and they were partly to credit for his benevolence. “The union of his parents, cemented as it was by a community of faith … was notable for many reasons, especially for generosity to the poor, for hospitality … for the dedication to God of a portion of their property.” Because of their proclivity towards being charitable, Basil learned primarily from them to be this same way to others as a habit of Christian piety. He lived his life being charitable towards others even using his personal wealth inherited from his deceased father to care for the poor. St. Basil’s altruism grew out of his Orthodox Christian faith and from his love. He later came to admire the hermit ascetics’ piety after touring various monasteries, but eventually concluded that communal monastic life was superior. During his tour, Basil became a disciple of the Bishop Eustathius, and after his tour had concluded Basil accepted Baptism. He learned to exercise charity as a function of the church in society from Eustathius, because the latter “wished to make the Church as much a force for social change as for cultic enthusiasm, and [Eustathius] certainly wished to inject into Christian experience a degree of moral seriousness that would affect public life as well as personal development.” Less than a decade after his having followed Eustathius, St. Basil was ordained a presbyter (priest) by Eusebius of Caesarea. Around the time of his ordination, the emperor Julian had attempted to lure Basil into being a member of his royal court since the two had previously studied in Athens together, but St. Basil did not go to Julian’s court but was brought to work alongside the bishop Eusebius of Caesarea. A few years later the famine mentioned above struck Cappadocia and proved a pivotal point that established Basil as truly a humanist who cared for those afflicted by the drought. a food shortage caused by the panic of the wealthy. Faced with the prospect of a famine of indefinite duration, they were unwilling to make available the grain already stored in their barns.” Because the wealthy, some of them Christians, acted so greedily, Basil preached several sermons on social justice to not only rebuke their sinful behavior towards the less fortunate, but he also urged them to adopt the transformed mindset that defined the essence of Christianity. St. Basil, in effect, began the social justice ministry in the early Church. It was out of that context that his great concern for and care of the sick took root. He believed that the Christian theologian or churchman neglects his true role if theology is pursued in academic, monastic, or ecclesiastical isolation from social existence. Theology exists for the ministry of the Church, and the ministry of the Church exists for society and the world, to personify the critical and transforming energy of human existence. St. Basil’s theological writings and homilies appealed to the wealthy to aid the poor while he had been an example of sharing his personal inheritance and establishing a soup kitchen before establishing hospices. He continued to aid the poor to the degree that he eventually rid himself of all of his personal inheritance and belongings, and he led the charge in caring for those who suffered along with the eventual benevolence of the church and some of the society. St. Gregory juxtaposed Basil’s city to the great wonders of the world. This new city was more remarkable not because of its size or beauty, but because there was “no longer before [their] eyes that terrible and piteous spectacle of men who [were] living corpses, the greater parts of whose limbs [had] mortified, driven away from their cities and homes and public places.” At the center of the Basiliad was the first hospital in human history – established by St. Basil himself. The poor were treated humanely there by those with means who themselves became more humane as a result of having bestowed their abundance for the benefit of those who had needs. It was here where the divine met the earthly. Monks of St. Basil’s community worked there tirelessly, increasing their number greatly. Laypersons, those trained in medicine, and those who supported the huge physical plant and its programs worked fervently together. The Christian mindset operated, and no longer was reserved solely for the basilica. Not only was a new city established devoted to helping those in need, but it gave birth to benevolent institutions that still exist today. This famine birthed the hospital, and the hospitals of Basil gradually morphed into separate institutions that cared for the particular demographic of person who was needy such as orphans, widows, or the physically sick. In pre-Christian Rome, these institutions had not existed. Christians also had to syncretize their religious beliefs with the practice of the pagan medical arts, so the hospital did not begin with a full-on acceptance of Greco-Roman medical practices. Christians regarded the practice of medicine as a virtue of charity, but they needed to marry their faith with medical practice. Basil aided in this union by responding to any detractors and doubters “that the Creator worked just as much through the visible world as he did through the unseen.” Another Cappadocian Father, who was Basil’s brother, St. Gregory of Nyssa, believed that the highest Christian virtue of charity belonged to physicians. Though the city’s first existence was due to benevolent means, it was not limited to being a city for the sick, or even those traveling. Basil referred to the town as “the Church of the Hospital,” so it was also a place of worship in addition to religious instruction. Basil had written to Amphilochius, bishop of Iconium, urging him to travel to Basiliad for an annual religious festival in honor of the martyrs. In a few of his other letters, Basil portrayed the city as also a monastery, because sharing was the common modus operandi of the new town. Neither was the care that the city offered limited solely to people of the Christian faith. Basil had written that those who served in the hospices were to minister to the sick as if they were brothers and sisters of Christ. He also wrote that those ministering were to serve as if they were serving Christ himself—hearkening back to the words of Jesus from Matt. 25:35–40. It is important to emphasize that the “newness” of Basil’s new city is not so much an institutional newness as it is an eschatological newness. That is, the Basiliad is not primarily a new kind of charitable institution, but rather a new set of relationships, a new social order that both anticipates and participates in the creation of “a new heaven and new earth where justice dwells” [2 Peter 3:13] present virus. Let us never lose hope, in the spirit of St. Basil. Let us keep in mind this new heaven and new earth as we struggle to move through this present pandemic. Above all, let us pray to St. Basil that he take care of us as he did the sick and poor of his day. Through the prayers of our holy father St. Basil of Caesarea, Monk and Bishop, may Christ our true God care for and protect all of us during this difficult time. Christ is Risen! Indeed, He is Risen! Faithfully in the Risen Lord, |
