Families in which the Three Holy Hierarchs were born show that, “regardless of the challenges one faces and the contexts one must navigate, there are solutions” for raising children who are faithful to the Church and well formed intellectually and socially, said Cosmin Pricop, Dean of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology “Patriarch Justinian” at the University of Bucharest, in an interview with Radio Trinitas.
Invited to the programme Family Life, hosted by Diana Parizianu, Fr. Pricop identified three models and three life contexts in which Christian mothers formed future saints. The discussion focused on the formative role of the mother within the family.
Saint Anthousa – a widowed mother
“Not by chance, Libanius, one of the teachers of Saint John Chrysostom, marvelled at Christian mothers and said: What mothers these Christians have!, when he saw the mother of Saint John Chrysostom, who, enduring with remarkable strength the hardships of her condition, nevertheless succeeded in caring for her son’s education,” the dean said.
He noted that at the time, “there was no real democratisation of education, no broad public access to schooling,” which makes her achievement all the more remarkable.
As a young widow, Saint Anthousa could have remarried in order to live more comfortably.
“She could have thought of her own comfort, but instead chose a form of maternal self-sacrifice, living through her son,” he added.
Saint Emmelia and the large family
“If we move to the mother of Saint Basil the Great, Saint Emmelia, we encounter an entirely different paradigm – that of a large family,” Fr. Pricop continued.
“Whereas in the case of Saint John Chrysostom we see primarily a mother–son relationship, here we have a mother who plays the decisive role in organising the entire family.”
“This is another model – the mother who does not devote herself to just one child, but to the whole family, who knows how to organise everything and how to orient everyone,” he underlined.
Saint Nonna – the mother who brought her husband to Christ
The third model is that of Saint Nonna, the mother of Saint Gregory the Theologian, who also convinced her husband to embrace the Christian faith, Fr. Pricop noted.
“There are countless homilies by Saint Gregory of Nazianzus in which he refers to his mother and to the way she taught him prayer, study, and concern for the fundamental themes of theology,” the priest said.
“Here we see a type of education focused especially on the depth of closeness to God and on a profound understanding of the faith.”
In the family of Saint Basil the Great, the mother assumed an organising role primarily, while in the family of Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, the mother’s influence took shape in “the theological depth she clearly imparted to her son,” Fr. Pricop added.
Solutions for today
If such family contexts existed in the past, there are certainly solutions today as well for the Christian upbringing and formation of children, he said.
“I believe every generation has both its opportunities and its challenges,” concluded the Dean of the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Bucharest.
The discussion continued with a focus on the profile of the new generation of theology students and the challenges facing today’s educators.
Background
Fr. Dr. Cosmin Pricop holds doctorates in theology from the Faculty of Orthodox Theology in Bucharest and from the Faculty of Evangelical Theology at Goethe University in Frankfurt am Main, Germany.
Between 2008 and 2011, he served as director of the theological department of Lumina Publications. He is a member of several biblical studies institutions, serves at the Delea Nouă–Calist Church in Bucharest, and is the father of two children.
Photo: Facebook / Cosmin Pricop
