St. Basil's bishop makes peace and dies in his arms

CAESAREA, Cappadocia, 362 AD — Saint Basil the Great had loved Bishop Dianius of Caesarea, in Cappadocia, since he was a boy at school there. As St. Basil grew up, he came to know Dianius as a cheerful, friendly man. The bishop always carried himself with dignity. Around 357 AD, home from his studies, St. Basil was baptised by Dianius.

Then, in 360 AD, the bishop signed a new statement of faith. For the next two years, St. Basil refused to share communion with him. Refusing communion with a bishop meant refusing to share the sacraments with him and his church.

One signature

The statement was a creed agreed at Constantinople. A bishop from Laodicea had brought it to Caesarea for Dianius to sign. The bishops at Nicaea had said that the Son was “of one substance” with the Father. The new creed dropped that word. It said the word “caused offense” and that “the Scriptures contain it not” — it was not in the Bible. It said only that the Son was “Like the Father.”

St. Basil wrote that he and many others “sorrowed over him with sorrow unendurable.” He stopped taking communion with his bishop. He left Caesarea for Nazianzus, to stay with a friend.

A message from a sickbed

Two years later, in 362 AD, Dianius fell ill with the sickness that would kill him. St. Basil wrote that Dianius was “full of kindness and gentleness.” Dianius wanted to make peace before he died. So he sent for the young man who had cut him off.

When St. Basil came, Dianius swore an oath before God. St. Basil wrote that Dianius said “that in the simplicity of his heart he had agreed to the document sent from Constantinople, but had had no idea of rejecting the creed put forth by the holy Fathers at Nicæa.” Dianius said he had never believed anything other than what he had believed from the beginning. Then he prayed not to be cut off from the three hundred and eighteen bishops of the Council of Nicaea.

St. Basil wrote that after hearing this he “dismissed all anxiety and doubt.” He took communion with his old bishop again, and “gave over grieving.”

Dianius died that year in St. Basil’s arms.

A story that wasn’t true

Years later, in 370 AD, St. Basil became Bishop of Caesarea. After that, a story went round that he had once pronounced an anathema against his old bishop. The bishop in the story was Dianius, the man who had died in St. Basil’s arms. St. Basil’s friend Bosporius, bishop of Colonia, wrote to tell him about it. St. Basil lay awake nearly the whole night over the letter.

St. Basil wrote back to Bosporius, and he asked: “And I, tell me, I anathematized the right blessed Dianius? For this is what they have said against me. Where? When? In whose presence?” He wrote that he had been “brought up in love for him” from his earliest childhood.

St. Basil ended the letter with a challenge. Anyone who claimed to know of some slander from him against Dianius, he wrote, should not “buzz it slave-wise in a corner,” but should “come boldly out and convict me in the light of day.”