Saints Basil the Great and Gregory Nazianzen, Bishops and Doctors of the Church

Basil (c. 330–379) and Gregory (c. 329–390), friends from Cappadocia, studied together in Athens. Basil wrote rules for monks that are still followed, became bishop of Caesarea in 370 and built a whole quarter of the city for the sick and the poor. When the emperor Valens’s prefect Modestus threatened him with confiscation, exile and death, Basil answered that he owned nothing but a few books and his rags; the astonished prefect said no one had ever spoken to him so, and Basil replied that perhaps he had never met a bishop.

Gregory, a poet and orator, led the small Nicene community of Constantinople from 379, gave his five Theological Orations there and presided for a time over the Council of 381, then withdrew to Cappadocia. Both defended the Creed of Nicaea and are Doctors of the Church.