CAPPADOCIA. — Roman province situated on the plateau of Anatolia, headed by the free city of Caesarea (today Kajsarijjeh). Its boundaries were Galatia, Pontus, Armenia, Cilicia, and Lycaonia.
There were Jews from C. among those who heard the first preaching of St. Peter (Act. 2, 9), and the same apostle also addresses his first letter to the faithful of C., which was perhaps evangelized by St. Paul on his journey toward Galatia. In the 2nd century the Legio Fulminata, in which there was no shortage of Christian soldiers, was stationed in Caesarea. This city was already an episcopal see at least from 200, since at that time its bishop Alexander, formerly a disciple of Pantaenus and Clement in the School of Alexandria, was arrested during the persecution of Septimius Severus. The influence of the Alexandrians was heightened by the fact that Firmilian, bishop of Caesarea (d. in 264), had been a disciple of Origen. This explains why the theology of the three great Cappadocians has such a close affinity with that of Alexandria. The circumstance that St. Basil’s paternal grandmother, Macrina, had in turn been a disciple of St. Gregory Thaumaturgus, another fervent disciple of Origen, also contributed to this.
C. was exposed in the 4th century to the vicissitudes of the Arian controversy. At the see of Caesarea, after Dianius and Eusebius, St. Basil the Great (v.) was consecrated bishop in 370; together with his brother St. Gregory of Nyssa and his friend St. Gregory of Nazianzus, he constitutes the most brilliant glory of Christian C. Basil’s attitude in favor of orthodoxy and against the machinations of the Arians aroused the ire of Valens, who spent the winter of 371–72 in C. and tried in vain to intimidate Basil through the prefect of the East, Modestus. Basil became the pivot of orthodoxy throughout Asia Minor. Out of spite and in order to diminish his influence, Valens divided the province of C., creating a second one with its capital at Tyana, whose bishop sought to escape the metropolitan jurisdiction of Caesarea. Basil then multiplied the episcopal sees in his province. Many centuries of Turkish domination have completely destroyed all Christianity in C. The paintings of the ancient rock churches remain.
Monastic life, begun in C. through the work of Eustathius in the 4th century, was subsequently practiced by St. Basil, St. Gregory of Nazianzus, and other monks, for whom St. Basil composed rules that, for the first time, legislated on coenobitic life.