Saint of the Day, January 2

Saint Basil (c. 330–379) was the bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and one of the architects of Christian monasticism in the East. Born into a family that produced four canonized saints, he studied rhetoric at Athens alongside Gregory of Nazianzus before retreating to a hermitage on the Iris River. There he wrote the Asketikon, the rule that still shapes Byzantine monastic life. As bishop he organized the Basiliad — a vast complex of hospitals, hospices and soup kitchens regarded as one of the first organized works of social welfare in history. His theological writings, especially On the Holy Spirit, were decisive against the Arian heresy and helped fix the Nicene faith in the Greek Church. He is honored as a Doctor of the Church and counted among the Three Holy Hierarchs.

Saint Gregory of Nazianzus (c. 329–390), called 'the Theologian,' was the close friend of Basil the Great and one of the Cappadocian Fathers who gave the Church the language of the Trinity. Reluctant in temperament and rhetorical in genius, he was dragged from a contemplative life to govern the small orthodox community of Constantinople, where his Five Theological Orations turned the tide against Arianism and earned him the presidency of the First Council of Constantinople in 381. After a brief and bruising patriarchate he retired to write the Carmina, religious poetry of unmatched intimacy. The Eastern Church honors him as one of the Three Holy Hierarchs; Rome counts him a Doctor of the Church.