By Fr. George Dorbarakis
Venerable Basil lived during the reign of Leo the Iconoclast. He left the world and the things of the world and became a monk. And after first practicing asceticism in a manner pleasing to God, later, when the struggle against the holy icons began, he strongly resisted the iconoclasts. As a result, he was arrested and underwent many punishments, yet he did not yield. On the contrary, he preached the truth unto death, having as his fellow-combatant also the divine Prokopios the Decapolite.
For this reason they tore his entire body and his neck with iron claws and cast him into prison. But it happened that the tyrant died, and thus the Venerable one was set free. And coming out of prison, he continued the same manner of life. He prepared and guided many on the path of virtue and brought back those who had gone astray to the Orthodox faith, until he departed with joy and thanksgiving to God, Whom he had longed for since infancy.The ascetic tradition of our Church always presents as a way of life something that provokes the reasoning of the worldly man, who does not live in God — even if he is superficially characterized as a Christian: namely, that temperance as a limitation of bodily pleasures constitutes the delight of the believer; poverty as a conscious choice constitutes his wealth; non-possession as the renunciation of owning any material things — especially of interior attachment to them — is his great property; humility is his praise.
And this is due to the fact that the Christian struggles against the central passion of man, self-love (philautia) with all its offshoots: love of pleasure (philedonia), love of money (philargyria), love of glory (philodoxia) — so as to transform it and make it love of God (philothea) and love of mankind (philanthropy). That is, he strikes his passions with the corresponding virtues, so that, by transforming through the grace of God self-love into love of God and love of man, he may find the point of harmony with the grace of God.
We must not forget that what is always sought is God Himself and His grace in the life of man, and the only place where man truly finds God is love. From this perspective we do not find it difficult to understand what we read, for example, in the Gerontikon concerning our saints, who said:
“I go where there is toil, and there I find rest.”
This same understanding we also observe in the ascetic life of Venerable Basil. Our Hymnographer guides us and says:
“Desiring the blessedness of God which is beyond human understanding, O inspired one, you regarded temperance as your delight, poverty as your wealth, non-possession as abundant property, and humility as your glory” (Vespers sticheron).
In other words, no one can truly encounter God, or feel the grace of the Spirit of God actively within him, while the passion of egoism with its consequences remains active within him. From this viewpoint one also understands the blessing of the period of Great Lent, which provides countless opportunities for examining our blameworthy passions and transforming them into divinely-inspired passions — that is, into love toward God and toward one’s fellow man.
The Holy Hymnographer Theophanes, apart of course from the ascetic conduct of Venerable Basil, also emphasizes in several hymns of his Canon the Venerable’s particular contest concerning the holy icons. The era of Venerable Basil chiefly confronted this reality: the Christological heresy of the iconoclasts with the immense warfare they had unleashed against the Orthodox — and there the Venerable one struggled: both through his teaching and through his martyrdom, from which he also received the title of Confessor.
The Hymnographer therefore, considering together Venerable Basil and his disciple Prokopios the Decapolite (27 February), notes something very beautiful regarding their struggle for the holy icons: the Venerables revered the icons because they preserved upright the image of God within their own soul. The honor they rendered to the icons of our Church was thus the continuation of the honor they gave to the image of God within their heart.
And this means: he who has the eyes of his soul open and beholds with reverence his grace-filled self — the one reborn by the grace of God in the Church through holy baptism and the other mysteries — he alone can also stand rightly before the icons, which make perceptible the living presence of Christ, the Theotokos, and the saints within our Church.
Consequently, in the opposite sense: the opponents of the icons, those who claim that they are “idolatrous” things, are precisely those who first of all have demolished within themselves the image of God and the true image of man.
“Having preserved with piety the image within the soul, O venerables, you struggled in martyrdom, reverencing the immaculate image of Christ” (Ode 3).
Saint Theophanes does not spare hymns in order to highlight, as we said, the joint struggle of Venerable Basil together with his disciple, Saint Prokopios. Not one or two, but six hymns within the Canon speak of the disciple — the fellow-athlete, co-struggler, like-minded companion, equal partner of Venerable Basil, Prokopios. For example:
“You obtained, Father, a fellow-athlete and prudent soldier, ever advancing in virtues, with whom, rejoicing, O all-blessed one, you contended in the martyrdom of steadfast struggle” (Ode 1);
“Bearing the name of the heavenly kingdom, you walked the road leading to it, having found Prokopios as one like-minded" - that is, of one soul and one faith (Ode 4).
Why this particular emphasis? Although Saint Theophanes says nothing explicitly about this, he clearly has in mind what the word of God always notes: “A brother helped by a brother is like a fortified city.” For if any stumbling should occur, the other immediately hastens to help. Therefore: “Woe to the one who is alone.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos. 
