Saint Macrina the Younger (330 - 379) was born at Caesarea, Cappadocia. Her parents were Basil and Elder Emmelia, and her grandmother was Saint Macrina the Elder. Her brothers were the Cappadocian Fathers, Basil the Great and Saint Gregory of Nyssa. She refused to marry and devoted herself to her religion, becoming a nun. In 379, Macrina died at her family's estate on the River Iris, in Pontus, and her brother Gregory composed a "Dialogue on the Soul and Resurrection" (peri psyches kai anastaseos), entitled ta Makrinia (P.G. XLVI, 12 sq.), to commemorate Macrina. Her feast day is the 19th of July.
She was the eldest child of Basil and Elder Emmelia, the granddaugher of St. Macrina the Elder, and the sister of the Cappadocian Fathers, Sts.
Soon afterwards, however, her affianced husband died suddenly, and Macrina resolved to devote herself to a life of perpetual virginity and the pursuit of Christian perfection.
On his return from a synod of Antioch, towards the end of 379, Gregory of Nyssa visited his deeply venerated sister, and found her grievously ill. In pious discourse the brother and sister spoke of the life beyond and of the meeting in heaven.
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