Most of us are familiar or at least should be with our father among the saints, Basil the Great. He is of course one of the Three Holy Hierarchs, one of the most brilliant and greatest saints of the Orthodox Church. Fewer people probably realize that he came from an extremely saintly family. Basil of Pontos, who was a man who was quite wealthy and suffered persecutions under the second Maxentius, upon surviving that persecution married a woman named Emilia. Now Basil and Emilia ended up having ten children. One of these, a boy, apparently died either at birth or very young. The oldest was a daughter, one of five, and her name was Macrina. Macrina took her name from her grandmother, Macrina, also recognized as a saint of the Church. However, aside from Macrina, there was also of course Basil, who was the oldest of the sons; Nafkratios, whom we are considering today, who was the second-oldest; followed by the illustrious Gregory of Nyssa; and Peter who became bishop of Sebastia, and whose writings are included in the Philokalia and many other places. So it’s quite astounding when we consider of the children of this blessed Basil and Emilia that fully five of them have become saints of the Orthodox Church.

Now Nafkratios was a young man when he decided that he had been called to a more solitary, perhaps even monastic, life. He was influenced greatly by his sister, Macrina, who, according to Gregory of Nyssa’s biography of her, was perhaps the most spiritually grounded and pious of the lot. Well, Nafkratios decided early on, about the time that Basil was actually being made a reader, if you can imagine such a thing—Nafkratios embarked upon a journey of about three miles, four miles from his home, where he settled on the river Iris. Now, the river Iris was a river that started in Armenia and went all the way to the Black Sea.

He lived there, living and cultivating the virtues, and essentially enjoying a calm and peaceful life. In fact, there were a group of men, older men, who were there at the time, who were in great need, and because Nafkratios had such a skill in fishing, he really supplied them with all of the food that they needed for their sustenance. So Nafkratios was a very calm man, a very able man, and someone who was quite gifted in letters, as indeed all the family was, though they indicated that perhaps he was the most gifted in that regard. If we think of St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa, we can certainly understand what a gift that must have been.

However, early on, perhaps about five years after he had made his decision to embark on this solitary life, a tragedy struck the family, and that tragedy was that Nafkratios and a companion of his were found dead by the river one day. No one knows exactly what happened, although it is presumed that he was drowned in some fashion. This really startled the family, and although Basil and Emilia, the parents, were quite calm and subdued in nature, in Emilia particularly it really shattered her. It was said that she found it hard to walk and was even breathless over the loss of losing her beloved son. But the great sister, Macrina, came to Emilia and used all of her powers of persuasion and her spiritual acumen to let her mother know that what happened was according to God’s will, that Nafkratios had a blessed life and that he was now with his Father in heaven. Eventually Emilia became calm about this and did not rend her clothes or do any weeping and wailing, but instead erected a chapel to the 40 holy martyrs, where she and her husband Basil would eventually be interred along with Nafkratios and along with the beloved sister, Macrina herself.

What are we to think of such a family? It is in all probability the most holy and pious family that has ever existed among Orthodox Christians. One can only imagine the instruction that Basil and Emilia gave to their children who were to become such luminescent figures in the Orthodox Church as a whole, indeed, defining figures in the Orthodox Church. But because of Macrina’s leadership, because of her innate spirituality, because of her great piety, she was able to pass the love of God along to all of her brothers who would eventually become saints themselves and even establish the family in calmness when the dear and beloved Nafkratios met his end by that river.

He is someone that we don’t think of today, perhaps because of the illustrious nature of his siblings, but he is someone that Gregory of Nyssa himself would like to be remembered, because all the family knew that Nafkratios had great virtue in himself and a profound love of God as they did and that because he met his end according to the will of God in this particular way, that he was no less a saint than any other saint in the Orthodox Church at any time.

So the day of June 8, as we approach the summer months, is one when we should pause and remember the blessed Nafkratios, the sibling of the sister Macrina, of St. Basil the Great, of St. Gregory of Nyssa, of St. Peter of Sebastia, and of course the grandchild of grandmother Macrina in this wonderful family that has given so much to our holy Church and continues to enlighten us all today.