Biography
Macrina was born around the year 330, in Caesarea, in Cappadocia, in what is now Turkey, in a wealthy Christian family. Her father, Basil the Elder, was a rhetorician and a landowner, and her mother, Emmelia, was a devout woman. She was the eldest of ten children. Among her younger siblings were Basil the Great, who became bishop of Caesarea and one of the greatest theologians of the church, Gregory of Nyssa, who also became a bishop and a theologian, and Peter of Sebaste, who became a bishop. Her family was known for its holiness. Her grandmother, Macrina the Elder, had been a disciple of Gregory the Wonderworker and had survived the persecution under Diocletian.
She was well educated, and she studied the Scriptures with her mother. She was known for her learning in the Psalms and the Wisdom books. At the age of twelve, she was betrothed to a young man, who died before the marriage. She decided to remain unmarried and to devote her life to God. She lived at home and helped her mother in the household. She also took on the education of her younger brother Peter, whom she raised as a son and taught the Scriptures, since their father had died.
After the death of her father, the family moved to an estate at Annisa, in Pontus, on the Iris River. There Macrina persuaded her mother to turn the household into a religious community. They gave up the distinctions of rank and lived as equals with their slaves and servants. The household became a monastery for women, with the mother and her daughter as leaders, and a companion monastery for men, which was led by Peter. They lived a life of prayer, fasting and work. They divided the day with psalms and prayers. They cared for the poor and sheltered travelers. In the time of the famine of 368, they fed those who came to them.
She was a strong influence on her brothers. She had a role in the conversion of Basil. When he returned from his studies in Athens, full of pride in his learning, she led him to see the vanity of worldly ambition. He gave himself to the ascetic life and went on to found his own monastic communities. He was shaped by his sister's example. Gregory of Nyssa also wrote about her influence on him. He said that she was his teacher.
Gregory visited her in 379, when she was about to die. He wrote a work, the Life of Macrina, which describes his visit and her death. He also wrote a dialogue, On the Soul and the Resurrection, in which she is the main speaker. In it, she discusses with him the nature of the soul and the hope of the resurrection. It is set at her bedside. In these texts, she is a philosopher and a teacher. He called her the teacher.
He found her ill, lying on a board on the ground, with a fever. She was dying of a disease, perhaps a tumor. She talked with him about the afterlife and gave him comfort. She said her last prayers and made the sign of the cross. She died in July 379, at the age of about forty-nine. She was buried in the family tomb, next to her mother. Her brother Peter and Gregory took part in the burial.
She was a woman who chose a life of obscurity and gave it meaning. Her life shows that holiness may shape the lives of those closest, and that a quiet woman may be the source of a movement. Gregory's record is the main source for her life, and it is a work of admiration.