"St. Macrina the Younger, the Spirit of Holiness and the 'God-breathed Scriptures'"

About This Event

Prof. Anna M. Silvas, University of New England, Australia

Saint Macrina the Younger was spiritual mother to her siblings, including Saints Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa. The Scriptures were focal in her life: the early Church’s approach to them, her sensibility of their literal and spiritual senses, and the unity of this approach with Her Liturgy. Macrina’s death, as reported by St Gregory of Nyssa, is a sacred liturgical scene, shot with Scriptural phrases, patterned like a Eucharistic anaphora, the resplendent final testimony of her self-gift to God.

Dr. Anna M. Silvas is Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at the University of New England in New South Wales, Australia. A patristics scholar, she works on the fourth century, the Cappadocian Fathers, and female asceticism in early Christianity. Her scholarship includes Macrina the Younger: Philosopher of God (Brepols, 2008) and work on Kassia, a Byzantine nun and hymnode.

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“Mulier Fortis: Women Scholars on Women in the Early Church” is a series of free public lectures in honor of Prof. Patrick James Hartin, a priest of the Diocese of Spokane and Professor Emeritus of the Department of Religious Studies at Gonzaga University. The lecture series began in 2016 with three lectures on “The Church and Her Scriptures” and will continue in 2018.

The Gonzaga University Faith and Reason Institute is dedicated to developing an integrationist understanding of faith and reason through a philosophical investigation into both the nature and results of scientific research and through critical discussion and reflection on topics in philosophical theology.