By Fr. George Dorbarakis
The Saint lived when the emperor was Julian the Apostate (4th century) and the governor of Ancyra was Saturninus. He himself was a presbyter of the Church in Ancyra. He was accused of being a Christian and for this reason was brought before the governor. When he was questioned about his faith and confessed Christ, they suspended him on a cross, tore his sides, and threw him into prison. They brought him out of prison again and tortured him even more by binding him with irons, and thus they imprisoned him once more. After some days, they led the Saint to the emperor, who happened to be passing through Ancyra. After he too interrogated him and saw the steadfastness of his faith, he gave orders to the count Flaventios to cut his body into strips, which immediately began to be done in the presence of the emperor. And after they had flayed him, front and back, so that strips hung from his body, Basil, who possessed adamantine faith, himself tore off one strip and threw it into the face of Julian. Enraged, he immediately ordered that he be burned with red-hot spits and that they pierce his belly and back and every other part that was still intact. In this manner he delivered up his spirit to God.
The tortures endured by all the holy martyrs evoke horror in every sensible person, but especially the torments of Saint Basil the Presbyter. For it was not only his punishment upon a cross or the wounds in his sides, nor even the weight of the iron hung upon him. It was that they literally flayed him, tearing strips from his body, and then completed his martyrdom with red-hot spits that pierced every part of his body. And the question arises: how did he endure so many tortures, so that he even wished, in a way, to “play” with the emperor himself, throwing into his face a strip of his own… flesh, and saying to him, “Eat meat, since you love it so much!” And it is the Holy Hymnographer of the Church who comes, with the wisdom of God, to give the answer: “They removed your skin by an unjust sentence, glorious Basil, and you endured the pains because your mind was fixed on your end, which would be without pain, and on the rewards prepared by the Lord for all the athletes” (Sticheron at Vespers). That is, his great faith in God and his love for Him activated the grace of his holy baptism — that he was a member of Christ — so that in the end he regarded every torment as participation in the sufferings of Christ, and with His strengthening he endured. “O Christ, King of all, the glorious Basil steadfastly loved Your royal glory, and thus he contended” (Ode 1). “Imitating, O wise martyr, Him who stretched out His hands for your sake upon the Cross, you too were crucified with endurance” (Ode 6).
The Holy Hymnographer makes an observation that refers to the martyrdom of the Church’s first martyr and archdeacon, Saint Stephen the Protomartyr: the face of Saint Basil shone with the grace of God when Emperor Julian the Apostate saw him, just as the face of Saint Stephen shone when he was being examined by his impious judges. As a result, just as in the case of the Protomartyr of old, so here also with Saint Basil, the emperor lost his reason and sank even deeper into the darkness in which he dwelt. “The impious one saw your divine face shining with the radiance of the Holy Spirit, and he was struck with amazement, O martyr. And as a servant of darkness without any perception, he became even more senseless” (Ode 4). And what does this mean? That ultimately the wicked man who has erased God from his life cannot endure the presence of the man of God. Being under the dominion of the ruler of darkness, he becomes demonized by anything that reminds him of faith in Christ; all the more does he react against martyrdom for His sake. What happened with the Lord, what happened with His Apostles, the same happens throughout time with faithful believers: those who deny do not want the light — even the slightest hint of its presence in the world. And rightly so: the light of faith and truth exposes the darkness and the hell in which they live.
Two points from the wealth of hymnography about the Saint deserve at least mention: first, Saint Basil ultimately subdued the enemy, the devil, and his instruments, because he himself had subjected himself to the Lord. It is well known in the Christian faith: obedience to God is the greatest power in the world, for it activates the omnipotence of the Lord Himself — provided that this obedience is not merely in words, but in life itself. As Saint Joseph the Hymnographer says: “You were subjected to the Lord through the goodness of your life, O all-wise one; therefore you subdued the enemy and splendidly crushed him beneath your feet” (Ode 1). And second, obedience to the will and commandments of God makes a person himself truly become a path of salvation for others, leading them to the true knowledge of God. “Because you kept the commandments of God, O divinely-minded Basil, you were shut up in prisons, but at the same time you opened for the faithful a path of teaching that leads to the breadth of the knowledge of God” (Ode 3).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
