St Macrina

Macrina was the eldest of ten children of a remarkable Cappadocian Christian family; among her brothers were St Basil the Great, St Gregory of Nyssa, and St Peter of Sebaste. Betrothed in her youth, she vowed to remain unmarried after her fiancé's death, and with her mother Emmelia she transformed the family estate at Annisa on the river Iris into a community of prayer, where mistresses and former slaves lived and worked as equals. Her family called her simply 'the Teacher.' When Basil returned from his studies puffed up with rhetorical brilliance, it was Macrina, Gregory writes, who drew him toward humility and the philosophic life. Gregory of Nyssa's 'Life of Macrina' and his dialogue 'On the Soul and the Resurrection' preserve her luminous deathbed conversation, in which she comforted her grieving brother with the hope of the resurrection before dying in prayer in 380.