When famine held Cappadocia in its grip, and ‘flesh clung to the bones of the poor like cobwebs’,11 then Macrina would make a tour of the refuse tips. Those infant girls she rescued she would take home, and raise as her own. Whether it was Macrina who had taught Gregory, or Gregory Macrina, both believed that within even the most defenceless newborn child there might be glimpsed a touch of the divine.
