Basil of Caesarea

Basil the Great was archbishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia and, with his younger brother Gregory of Nyssa and his friend Gregory of Nazianzus, one of the three Cappadocian Fathers who secured the Church’s faith in the Trinity against Arianism. A monk before he was a bishop, he wrote a monastic rule that still governs Eastern religious life and, in On the Holy Spirit, defended the full divinity of the Spirit. He was also a tireless servant of the poor, building outside Caesarea a great complex of hospice, hospital, and almshouse — the Basiliad — that has been called the first hospital.