The New Year festivities may be over, but Christmastide is still underway. January 2 marks the Ninth Day of Christmas, commemorating two of the great Doctors of the Church.

Saint Basil the Great, Bishop of Caesarea, and Saint Gregory of Nazianzus, Patriarch of Constantinople, were towering figures of the Patristic era. Both hailed from Cappadocia in Asia Minor, a region that remained ethnically and culturally Greek at the time, long before the arrival of the Turks. They are especially revered in Eastern Orthodoxy, where, together with Saint John Chrysostom, they are celebrated as the Three Holy Hierarchs. However, Orthodox Christians do not celebrate them today, as they do not observe the same calendar as Western Christians.

The two share January 2 as a feast day in the Western calendar—notably, they lived before the Great Schism between Roman Catholicism and Eastern Orthodoxy—partly because of their deep friendship: St. Basil ordained St. Gregory as a bishop, and after St. Basil’s death, St. Gregory delivered a funeral oration in his honor.

Their theological writings, though often challenging for laymen, continue to be an essential study for serious scholars of theology more than seventeen hundred years later. Both were unwavering champions of Nicene Christianity in the face of Arianism—the heresy whose founder, Arius, famously received a slap from Saint Nicholas. Arius and his supporters rejected the Trinity as understood today, viewing the Son as a created being. St. Basil and St. Gregory vigorously upheld both the full divinity and full humanity of Christ, while also defending the Holy Spirit’s equal place within the Godhead against those who diminished Him.

The bishops’ legacy extends far beyond doctrine. St. Basil, in particular, was a pioneering philanthropist who founded almshouses, hospitals, hospices, orphanages, and soup kitchens. He is said to have donated his entire personal fortune to these efforts, creating a vast complex of charitable facilities outside his city, known as the Basiliad.

Thus, the Ninth Day of Christmas offers not only an opportunity to explore theology and deepen your faith, but also serves as a reminder of the command to treat others as we wish to be treated.

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January 1 marks the Eighth Day of Christmas, known to the Catholic Church as the Solemnity of Mary, Mother of God. A solemnity is the highest-ranking type of Christian feast, and many are Holy Days of Obligation, meaning Catholics are expected to attend Mass unless they have a serious reason or dispensation not to. While Christmas and Easter stand as the greatest solemnities—celebrating Christ’s birth and resurrection—the Solemnity of Mary is not far behind.

Catholics and Orthodox Christians have long given the Virgin Mary a place of profound honor. For many Protestants, however, devotion to her can feel uncomfortable. Is it appropriate to dedicate services to the mother of Jesus or to ask for her intercession instead of addressing God directly? Might such practices risk sliding into idolatry or a form of goddess worship?

Catholics and Orthodox argue that the Virgin Mary, like all who are saved, is alive in Christ, not dead, as Scripture promises those who believe in Him “everlasting life.” Asking her—or any of the faithful departed who form the “cloud of witnesses” mentioned in the New Testament—to pray for us is therefore seen as no different from asking living friends, relatives, and fellow believers to pray for us.

The longstanding disagreements over venerating the Virgin Mary cannot be settled here. Still, it’s worth noting that many Protestants across history have held her in profound esteem—not only Anglicans and Episcopalians, whose faith retains some Catholic elements, but even the arch-Protestant Martin Luther.

Despite his sharp criticisms of the Catholic Church and certain of its doctrines, Luther never rejected personal devotion to the Virgin Mary. In 1522, he stated, “The veneration of Mary is inscribed in the very depths of the human heart.” Nearly ten years later, in 1531, he preached that she was the “highest woman and the noblest gem in Christianity after Christ… nobility, wisdom, and holiness personified,” adding that “We can never honor her enough”—while cautioning that such honor “must be given to her in such a way as to injure neither Christ nor the Scriptures.”

Whether your tradition leads you to join a Catholic Mass honoring the Mother of God on the Eighth Day of Christmas or not, it may still be fitting to pause and reflect on her indispensable role in the story of the Incarnation today. And if she’s still with you, consider reaching out to your own mother today.

Image by Nheyob.

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