Lent Series 2024 – Female Theologians: St Macrina by Revd. Canon Prof. Morwenna Ludlow
In The Sacristy at Exeter Cathedral via The West Wing
Join Revd. Canon Prof. Morwenna Ludlow on Tuesday 6 February, 2024 at 6.30-8.00pm for a Lent talk on the topic of St Macrina.
Macrina was the founder of a monastic community for men and women in the Roman province of Cappadocia in the 350s AD. Several recent scholars have suggested that she has a better claim to that title ‘founder of eastern monasticism’ than her younger (but more famous) brother Basil. She left no written texts, but we do have a record of her life by another brother Gregory of Nyssa which explains the profound effect she had on the community around her.
In second text, Gregory presents Macrina as an authoritative theological teacher, casting her as a kind of Christian Socrates, comforting her pupils with a philosophical vision of the resurrection as she lies dying. Morwenna will ask what this text reveals about fourth century Christian ideas of Easter hope.