NPNF2-08. Basil: Letters and Select Works - Holy Bible Institute

To the Church of Ancyra. Consolatory.To the Church of Ancyra. Consolatory. 2001Letter XXIX. 2000My amazement at the most distressing news of the calamity which has befallen you fora long time kept me silent. I felt like a man whose ears are stunned by a loud clap of thunder.Then I somehow recovered a little from my state of speechlessness. Now I have mourned,as none could help mourning, over the event, and, in the midst of my lamentations, havesent you this letter. I write not so much to console you,—for who could find words to curea calamity so great?—as to signify to you, as well as I can by these means, the agony of myown heart. I need now the lamentations of Jeremiah, or of any other of the Saints who hasfeelingly lamented a great woe. A man has fallen who was really a pillar and stay of theChurch or rather he himself has been taken from us and is gone to the blessed life, and thereis no small danger lest many at the removal of this prop from under them fall too, and lestsome men’s unsoundness be brought to light. A mouth is sealed gushing with righteouseloquence and words of grace to the edification of the brotherhood. Gone are the counselsof a mind which truly moved in God. Ah! how often, for I must accuse myself, was it mylot to feel indignation against him, because, wholly desiring to depart and be with Christ,he did not prefer for our sakes to remain in the flesh! 2002 To whom for the future shall Icommit the cares of the Churches? Whom shall I take to share my troubles? Whom toparticipate in my gladness? O loneliness terrible and sad! How am I not like to a pelicanof the wilderness? 2003 Yet of a truth the members of the Church, united by his leadershipas by one soul, and fitted together into close union of feeling and fellowship, are both preservedand shall ever be preserved by the bond of peace for spiritual communion. Godgrants us the boon, that all the works of that blessed soul, which he did nobly in the churchesof God, abide firm and immovable. But the struggle is no slight one, lest, once more strifesand divisions arising over the choice of the bishop, all your work be upset by some quarrel.1342000 Placed in 368.2001 cf. Letters xxiv. and xxv., and note.2002 cf. Phil. i. 23, 24.2003 cf. Ps. cii. 6.416