The Holy Family of Cappadocia
Naucratius belonged to one of the most remarkable Christian families of the fourth century. His parents were Basil the Elder and Emmelia of Caesarea, and his siblings included Basil the Great, Gregory of Nyssa, Macrina the Younger, and Peter of Sebaste. Gregory of Nyssa, in his Life of Macrina, describes Naucratius as the second of the four brothers, coming after Basil.
According to Gregory, Naucratius excelled his siblings in natural gifts and physical endowments — in beauty, strength, speed, and ability. Family tradition also preserved a memory of him as a jurist, and later accounts within the household associate him with legal learning.
His sudden death shifted responsibilities within the family, giving Macrina a more central role in caring for their mother Emmelia and in guiding the domestic life of the household toward asceticism.
Withdrawal and the Ascetic Life
Around the year 352, at about the age of twenty-one and after demonstrating his rhetorical skill in public, Naucratius chose to despise the success already within his grasp and withdraw from the world. Gregory attributes this decision to divine providence guiding him toward a higher way of life.
He departed with a single servant named Chrysapius, who followed him voluntarily out of affection and shared purpose. Together they settled in a solitary place on the banks of the Iris, a river flowing through the midst of Pontus, far removed from the noise of the city.
There Naucratius lived by the labor of his own hands, hunting and fishing to provide for himself. Gregory records that he looked after some old people living in poverty and feebleness, using the provisions he gathered to sustain them while disciplining himself through physical toil. Gregory calls this his life as a "philosopher," using the term in its ascetic sense.
Death and Its Aftermath
In 357, during the fifth year of his solitary life, Naucratius was killed suddenly while on one of the expeditions by which he provided necessities for the old men in his care. He and his companion Chrysapius both died, apparently in a hunting accident, without any preceding illness, and their bodies were brought back home together.
Gregory relates that their mother Emmelia collapsed under the weight of grief, and that Macrina so supported her by reasoned consolation that Emmelia rose above her sorrow. The loss is remembered as a decisive moment in the family's spiritual history: it is connected with Basil's return from his studies at Athens and his own subsequent move toward the hermit's life.
Commemoration and Legacy
Naucratius has no widely fixed individual feast day. A liturgical list drawn from Sergei Bulgakov's handbook of the saints, reproduced in a modern resource on the Saturday of Cheesefare, notes a commemoration for him on June 8, indicating that this date is observed in at least some Orthodox tradition. He is also commemorated collectively among the ascetic fathers and mothers remembered on the Saturday of Cheesefare.
His memory as one who fed the hungry from what he caught by hunting and fishing has inspired later initiatives bearing his name. The Order of Naucratius, established within the Episcopal Diocese of Western Michigan, honors him by connecting hunters and anglers who share their harvests with communities in need.
