Macrina lived a chaste and humble life, devoting her time to prayer and the spiritual education of her younger brother Peter.

Among her nine siblings were two of the three Cappadocian Fathers, her younger brothers Basil the Great and Gregory of Nyssa, as well as Peter of Sebaste and the famous Christian jurist Naucratius.

[2] Macrina, who resolved never to leave her mother,[3] moved with her to one of their rural estates and lived within a community of virgins who came from both an aristocratic and a non-aristocratic background.

[4] In 379, Macrina died at her family's estate in Pontus, which with the help of her younger brother Peter she had turned into a convent of virgins.

Gregory of Nyssa composed a Dialogue on the Soul and Resurrection (peri psyches kai anastaseos), entitled ta Makrinia (P.G.