Abune Basilios was regarded as a conservative and traditionalist figure within the church, in contrast to his eventual successor Abuna Theophilos who was then Archbishop of Harar and regarded as a modernist and a reformer. Patriarch Abune Basilios regarded all innovation with deep suspicion. Abune Basilios was a deeply pious man, greatly focused on prayer and fasting, and as such left more and more of his duties to Abuna Theophilos who acted as his deputy, and later as acting Patriarch when Abune Basilios' health began to deteriorate after 1963.