Not a picture of any of the saints, but it does reflect the eastern Church's style ... one that seems to have learned much for the saints the Church honors today. Basil and Gregory were 4th century Bishops who were eventually designated as Doctors of the Church. An irony in their "heritage" is that between them there are ten relatives of the two Bishops who are also saints!As Bishops Basil and Gregory, both who preferred the monastic life to the active life of the diocesan clergy, became involved in the theological controversy of their day ... primarily dealing with the Trinity. He preached and wrote much about the equality of the Holy Spirit with the Father and the Son. His preference for the monastic life led Basil to found the first monastery located in what is now Turkey. He insisted that monks should take time to care for orphans providing them with a decent education.
Gregory also wrote and preached that there was indeed and equality within the Trinity. He wrote "The Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit have this in common --- they are uncreated and they are divine."
Each year the Church celebrates their feast day on the 2nd day of the calendar year. This surely is a recognition of the significant contribution they made to the early Church. In the early years of the Church's history, after the Council of Nicea in 325 AD, controversies arose about the divinity of Jesus and what we know today as the Trinity. Arianism was being taught. The Arians held a position which denied that Jesus was God. Gregory challenged another heresy of the time. Apollonarius denied the existence of a rational soul in Christ's human nature. He maintained that the body of of Jesus was glorified and spiritualized form of humanity. We don't hear much about these issues today because, quite frankly, many do not fully comprehend the cultural and spiritual waves that were a part of the growing experience. Suffice it to say that our Church today would most likely be very different had the saints not been so vocal in preaching what their prayer and reflection instilled in their minds and hearts.
These saints possessed and were possessed by a zeal for the faith that is very different from the experience most of us have today with regard to the Church and the "mysteries" which cannot be solved simply because they are mysteries.
A slow and careful reflective reading of the first words from today's scripture reflects the kind of thinking that is so different from contemporary thinking.
