Saint Peter of Sebaste

Peter of Sebaste (Greek: Πέτρος; c. 340 – 391) was a bishop, taking his usual name from the city of his bishopric, Sebaste in Lesser Armenia. He was the younger brother of Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nyssa, the famous Christian jurist Naucratius, and Macrina the Younger. He is also known as Peter of Sebasteia. Peter was not intellectually inferior to the more celebrated members of his family, but his genius "seems to have been rather practical than literary". His parents were Basil and Emmelia of Caesarea-in-Cappadocia, who were banished for their faith in the reign of the Emperor Galerius Maximian, and fled into the deserts of Pontus. His grandmother was Macrina the Elder, who was instructed by Gregory Thaumaturgus. The youngest of ten, he was brother to Macrina the Younger and the two Cappadocian doctors, Basil of Caesarea and Gregory of Nyssa. Macrina, his eldest sister, exercised a great influence over his religious training, acting as his instructor and directing him toward the spiritual and ascetic life. Renouncing the study of secular sciences, he devoted himself to meditation on the Bible and the cultivation of the religious life. Basil appears to have employed his brother as his confidential agent in some matters. Subsequently, he withdrew from active affairs, and resumed the life of a solitary ascetic. He assisted his sister and his mother in establishing their monastic community after his father's death. Peter became involved in the gradual transformation of his mother's household from a community of virgins to a cenobitic community of both women and men. For some years his brother Basil was his near neighbour on the other side of the Iris, where he had established a monastery for male ascetics, in the presidency of which Peter succeeded him when in 365 Basil was finally recalled to Caesarea by bp. Eusebius. Peter headed the male monastery while Macrina was responsible for the female community.