Learning from Basil

A man who changed the world

It is easy to think that somehow people who didn’t live in the current times are somehow less developed than we are.

One person from the very early days of the Christian church (about 300 A.D.) seems to be to be someone who we need to be learning from rather than feeling superior to.

Basil of Cappadocia is fast becoming one of my heroes.

We in Fusion talk about establishing Basilan Monastic Model communities, and I think Poatina is the closest we have come to that, however I think we still have a lot to learn from this father of the Christian church.

I came across this article about Basil that details two shifts in his life that I wonder whether we as a Christian church still need to make.

As a leader in Fusion, I also wonder whether we as an organisation need to hear clearly what these shifts were about:

In St. Gregory the Theologian’s funeral oration for St. Basil the Great, St. Gregory describes the legacy of St. Basil’s philanthropic endeavors in this way: “Go forth a little way from the city, and behold the New City, the storehouse of piety, the common treasury of the wealthy … where disease is regarded in a religious light, and disaster is thought a blessing, and sympathy is put to the test.”

St. Gregory is referring to the Basiliad, the great philanthropic foundation established by St. Basil where the poor, the diseased, orphans and the aged could receive food, shelter, and medical care free of charge from monks and nuns who lived out their monastic vocation through a life of service, working with physicians and other lay people. The New City was in many ways the culmination of St. Basil’s social vision, the fruit of a lifetime of effort to develop a more just and humane social order within the region of Caesarea, where he grew up and later served as a priest and a bishop.

The story of Basil’s life centers around two profound shifts.

The first, a spiritual awakening so decisive as to be called a conversion, occurred shortly after he completed his studies at the great university at Athens. As a result of this experience, Basil chose to be baptized, a decision that in his day was often postponed until late in life. He then sold his inheritance, distributed the funds to the poor, and embarked upon a journey to see the monastic communities that were flourishing throughout Palestine, Syria, and Egypt.

These communities were founded upon the principle of communal monasticism, a life in which everything B meals, goods, prayer – was shared in common. Basil returned to Caesarea and, in a remote area of the family estate, established a monastic community based upon the cenobitic model.

The second great turning in his life took place six years later. Prompted by a deep sense of responsibility for the good order of the Church and of society, Basil elected to leave the monastery he had founded and to be ordained a priest and take up parish ministry in Caesarea.These two turnings – Basil’s decision to pursue a monastic vocation and his subsequent decision to leave the monastery and return to the world B may be said to comprise the polarity of Basil’s vision, the axis upon which his worldview turns.

Throughout his ministry, he remained committed to the ideal of a community of shared life and resources, as exemplified by cenobitic monasticism. But he was equally determined that this ideal not be limited to the monasteries, but should rather be brought to bear upon the greater society.

Basil envisioned an engaged monasticism, urban rather than rural, and dedicated to service to the poor as an essential aspect of monastic practice.

His inspiration, as expressed in the New City, was to bring together the involuntary poor and the voluntary poor (monastics) in order to create a new kind of community.

Basil’s vision is radical because it represents both a reform of monasticism, calling monks and nuns to return to the world and embrace its cares and sorrows as their own, and a reform of society, advocating the creation of a social order based upon simplicity and sharing rather than competition and private ownership.