By Fr. George Dorbarakis
1. This glorious martyr of Christ, Basil (or Basileus) of Amasea, was Bishop of the Metropolis of Amasea (which is situated on the Black Sea), in the time of Licinius, who, as the brother-in-law of Constantine the Great through his sister Constantina, was sent by Constantine against Maximinus Daia, who had rebelled and had held as a tyrant certain parts of the East.
Licinius, therefore, was found in Nicomedia, since the revolt had ended, and he offered sacrifices to the idols. He even ordered that Saint Basil be brought to him from Amasea together with a young woman named Glaphyra. This Glaphyra was a servant of Licinius’s wife Constantina, and she had perceived that Licinius was raging with passion for her, something which she reported to her mistress Constantina. Then Constantina gave her money and sent her to the East, until, going from place to place, she arrived in Amasea.
Licinius, however, learned where she had gone and that the money his wife had given her had been given to the Bishop of Amasea in order to build a church; therefore he ordered that both be seized and brought before him. But Glaphyra had already departed from this life, while the blessed bishop Basil was led to Nicomedia to the emperor and received death by the sword, after confessing his faith in Christ and spitting upon the delusion of the so-called gods and their vanity.
They therefore cut off his neck, and from the ship into which they had placed him they threw him into the sea, casting his head on one side and his body on the other; yet these were wondrously joined together again in their natural former harmony. Thus the Saint was found unharmed in the gulf of Sinope, when some fishermen caught him in their nets as they drew him to shore — a fact that a certain Christian named Elpidophoros learned from an angel of the Lord; he was also the first to receive the Saint into his house in Nicomedia.
Elpidophoros, together with the deacons of the Saint who had followed him from Amasea, Theotimos and Parthenios, came and took the holy relic, and after honoring it with myrrh and hymns, they brought it to Amasea.
2. Three are the principal points on which the Holy Joseph the Hymnographer insists concerning Saint Basil of Amasea: first, the holy manner of life of Basil; second, his martyric end, by which he himself became a priest who sacrificed himself; third, the help he rendered to Saint Glaphyra, who is also celebrated today.
Indeed, Saint Joseph repeatedly emphasizes that the Holy Bishop of Amasea was not some random man, even if a good Christian. He was one of those fervent workers of the faith in whom the Holy Spirit had found a place of rest within his being because of the purity of his heart. After all, this constitutes one of the principal elements of our faith according to the word of the Lord Himself: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.” The Holy Bishop, therefore, struggled in the spiritual struggle “from infancy” (Ode 8), always looking toward that which constitutes the end of all: his deification, this “never-completed” perfection, which presupposes illumination from the Lord and the struggle for the purification of the heart. Being “deified,” therefore, by his union with the Lord, and seeing Him already by faith from this life, he was numbered in the Church of the firstborn brethren, that is, of the saints, and thus thereafter beholds Him more clearly, “face to face.” “You were numbered among the company of the firstborn, as you were being deified by participation in the divine energies, now seeing more clearly the beauty of the Master Christ, O invincible martyr, divinely-wise and blessed Basil” (Ode 3). “You made your mind an emperor and stand worthily before God, for you ruled over all your passions, O blessed one, strengthened by the divine law” (Stichera at Vespers). And within this spiritual struggle is naturally included also his work as high priest: both his prayers and his preaching — to manifest the things of the faith and to dismantle everything heretical and idolatrous. “You dissolved the winter of heresies with the warmth of your all-wise teachings, just as you cleared away the mist of idols with the light of your contests” (Ode 3).
The martyric end of Saint Basil constitutes a distinct subject of approach for the Holy Hymnographer, especially his being cast into the sea with the wondrous reunion again of his head with the rest of his body — a gift of God to the faithful (Ode 5). He performs a sacred rite of himself, notes the Hymnographer, being at once both priest and victim — a continuation of the Lord Himself, Who as the One and absolute High Priest sacrifices nothing other than His own very self. “You became a priest of yourself, offering yourself as a spotless lamb, all-blessed one” (Ode 4); “you became a priest of yourself, and thus you were led as both priest and sacrifice to the immortal and mystical table” (Ode 8). This is to point out a spiritual truth that escapes external approaches: “With the streams of your blood, by divine grace, you dried up the sea of wicked unbelief” (Ode 4). “You dried up the waters of delusion with the currents of your sacred blood” (Ode 6). This spiritual truth proclaims the mystery of the Christian faith: the more the instruments of darkness and delusion turn against Christians with the aim of violently erasing them, the more their blood strengthens the tree of faith. The blood of the holy martyrs, as a grace-filled continuation of the Blood of the First Martyr, the Lord Jesus Christ, constitutes the greatest power for the eradication of delusion and unbelief — does a saint get “destroyed”? The truth is multiplied and spread, while delusion is abolished. The whole of Christian history is the confirmation of this reality. And how could it be otherwise, when on the Cross of the Lord — in which all the holy martyrs and all Christians participate — sin was abolished, death was trampled down, and the devil was conquered?
And further, Saint Joseph the Hymnographer takes occasion to extol the great and remarkable personality of Glaphyra, a woman simple according to the world, a servant, yet whose greatness surpasses even the heavens! Why? Because she became a true member of Christ and in Him embraces all things. Glaphyra recalls the all-comely Joseph of the Old Testament, who prefigures the Lord Jesus Christ. He too, having the Lord before him, escaped the sinful desires of his mistress, the wife of the Egyptian official Potiphar. Indeed, he preferred to go out into the streets naked rather than yield to wickedness, being shown to be the greatest among the Patriarchs both in this world and in the Kingdom of God. But does not the same occur also with Glaphyra? She receives the demonic assaults of the king Licinius, and not only does she not “take advantage” of them, as others perhaps would have done, but she is sent away by her mistress in order to remain pure and undefiled before her Lord. The poet notes with great lyricism: “Glaphyra escaped the soul-destroying pit and found you, Father Basil, as a harbor of salvation. Therefore, having become a bride of Christ her Creator, she rejoices, crying: You are our God, and there is none holy besides You, O Lord” (Ode 3). And elsewhere: “Father, you led Glaphyra to Christ the Bridegroom as a bride splendidly clothed wholly in virtues and in virginity, and having adorned her with your teachings you made her worthy of His bridal chamber, where together you rejoice in the heavenly dwellings” (Ode 7).
May the great saint, foreknowing and discerning (Ode 5), Basil intercede unceasingly also for us, channeling the grace of the Lord into every illness of our soul and body (Ode 9).
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
