Macrina the Elder

Macrina the Elder ( c. 260, † 340 ) was a prominent member of the Christian community of Neocaesarea on the Black Sea coast of Asia Minor. She was the grandmother of Saint Macrina the Younger brothers, Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa and Peter of Sebaste, to which they had a decisive influence.

Gregory of Nyssa calls the grandmother in the biography of his sister Macrina the Younger a remarkable ( insignis ) woman who had fought in the time of persecution for Christ.

Gregory Nazianzen mentions it in his grave speech for Basil the Great. During the persecution under Maximinus Daia Macrina had fled with her husband in the Pontic Mountains. There would have endured long hunger and the inclemency of the weather, the two seven years.

Basil himself reported that Macrina had been a pupil of Bishop Gregory of Neocaesarea († 270 ). For him, Basil, she had been in his youth the spiritual nursing mother ( Nutrix ).

Macrina the Elder. has been nowhere worshiped in earlier times as saints. Only the Cardinal Cesare Baronio and church historian († 1607) they added in the martyrology a Roman and ordered her, for no apparent reason, the 14th of January as a day of remembrance to.