St. Basil left the world in his youth and labored in a desolate place. One day, he was overgrown in rags, and the courtiers of the Byzantine emperor saw him passing by and were alarmed by his strange appearance. Suspecting something was wrong, they seized the ascetic and brought him to the city, where the patrician Samon interrogated him. When asked who he was, the saint replied only that he was an alien and a wanderer on earth. The monk was subjected to severe tortures, but he endured in silence, unwilling to talk about his ascetic life. 
Samon, losing patience, asked Saint Basil: "Impious one, how long will you hide who you are and where you come from?" To this the holy seer replied: "Those who, like you, spend their lives in all kinds of uncleanness should be called impious." After his public denunciation, Samon angrily ordered the saint to be hung upside down with his hands and feet tied behind his back. The torture was so severe that the eyewitnesses began to complain about it. When, after three days of torture, the holy ascetic was removed, he turned out to be alive and unharmed. Samon attributed this miracle to magic and gave Saint Basil to be torn to pieces by a hungry lion. However, the lion did not touch the saint and peacefully lay down at his feet. 
Powerless, Samon ordered blessed Basil to be drowned in the sea, but two dolphins picked up the saint and carried him ashore in the suburb of Constantinople, Evdome. The monk entered the city, where near the Golden Gate he met a sick man named John, who was suffering from fever. Saint Basil healed the sick man in the name of the Savior and, at John's request, stayed with him. Numerous believers also came to the blessed one for advice and guidance, as well as to receive healing from diseases through his holy prayers. St. Basil, who possessed the gift of epiphany, rebuked sinners, turning them to the path of repentance, and predicted future events. Among those who visited the saint was Gregory, who became his disciple and subsequently wrote a detailed life of his teacher. One day, at the hotel, Grigory found an expensive belt dropped by the owner's daughter. He hid it in order to sell it and give the money to the poor. However, on the way home, along with other things, he lost his belt. In a dream, he received admonition from St. Basil, who showed him a broken pot with the words:
"If anyone steals even such a worthless thing, they will be punished four times. You have concealed someone else's belt and you will be condemned as a thief. You must return what you found."
When Saint Theodora, who served Saint Basil, died, Gregory was very eager to learn about her afterlife and often asked the holy ascetic to reveal this to him. Through the prayers of the blessed Gregory, he saw in a dream the elder Theodora, who told him how her soul passed through the ordeal after death and how the power of Blessed Basil's prayers helped her (in memory of St. Theodora of Tsaregrad on December 30).
St. Basil died around the year 944 at the age of one hundred and ten.
The Church calls him the New One, distinguishing him from other ascetics who bore the same name and lived before him.