Cappadocian Fathers

The Cappadocians advanced the development of early Christian theology, for example the doctrine of the Trinity,[2]: 22  and are highly respected as saints in both Western and Eastern churches.

An older sister of Basil and Gregory of Nyssa, Macrina, converted the family's estate into a monastic community.

Basil the Great was the oldest of Macrina's brothers, the second eldest being the famous Christian jurist Naucratius.

Their maternal grandfather had been a martyr, and their parents, Basil the Elder and Emmelia of Caesarea are also recognized as saints.

The fathers set out to demonstrate that Christians could hold their own in conversations with learned Greek-speaking intellectuals and that Christian faith, while it was against many of the ideas of Plato and Aristotle (and other Greek philosophers), was an almost scientific and distinctive movement with the healing of the soul of man and his union with God at its center—one best represented by monasticism.

So, in the case in question, ousia refers to the general conception, like goodness, godhead, or such notions, while hypostasis is observed in the special properties of fatherhood, sonship, and sanctifying power.

Gregory of Nyssa taught that she took a vow of Virginity, and was perhaps the first theologian to associate the burning bush typologically with Mary, in his Life of Moses.

Moreover, he bears witness to the earliest known prayer to Mary from the Patristic literary corpus, relating how a virgin prayed to Mary to help her overcome temptation, showing the ascetic matrix that was the context of early Marian devotion vis-à-vis the perpetual virginity.