The Lives of Saints

Α Christian in fourth-century Persia could scarcely hope to lead a peaceful life in the midst of various factions which leagued together in their common hatred and harassment of the followers of Jesus Christ. One woman who came to know the full wrath of the Messiah’s enemies was Irene, whose name in Greek means peace. In choosing to follow Christ in this extremely hostile land of soothsayers and snake charmers, she chose to ride out the storm in a manner that brought her sainthood.

Born during the reign of Constantine the Great in the Persian city of Magydus, Irene was the daughter of Licinius, governor of the region. Licinius was a ruler of little humor, with even less understanding and with an iron will that was in the tradition of the Medes and the Saracens. He reared his only child, Irene, in an ornate palace. At the age of eight she began to be tutored in the grand manner of the times. Accordingly she studied for ten years under the tutelage of Apelanios, an educator renowned for his wisdom and intellect.

According to Apelianos, who was also Irene’s biographer, an angel of the Lord appeared to Irene in a dream when she was a young woman and told her that she had been chosen to be the voice of the Messiah among her own people. When she told the venerable Apelanios of her dream, he stood in awe. When he saw it in its proper perspective he warned the girl that the road ahead would be strewn with obstacles and that the journey would be an arduous one. She knew that her faith would sustain her.

Licinius at first attributed her new eagerness for Christianity to the whim of youth, and he advised her to give up this madness. When her declarations for Christ continued unabated, he sternly warned her that he could tolerate no more. When she failed to comply he flew into a rage, threatening to have her trampled in the arena by wild horses. Apelanios related that while Licinius was at the arena arranging the stampede to take his daughter’s life, he was somehow accidentally trampled himself.

Irene hurried to the side of her father, and as he lay mortally wounded she prayed to the Lord that he be spared. Her prayer was answered. Licinius recovered, repented, and was baptized into the Christian faith. For this he was promptly removed from office by the Persian King, Sedecian.

Turning to Irene, whom he considered a sorceress, Sedecian stated that he would restore her father to his post and allοw her to go free if she disavowed Christ. She declined and was thereupon cast into prison. There she was subjected to inhuman torture and was given just enough food to sustain her until the next flogging. After Sedecian’s death, she was released.

Miraculously regaining her health, she carried the message of the Messiah throughout the land, converting thousands to Christianity. Three consecutive successors to Sedecian, Savor, Numerianus, and Savorian all failed to halt Irene’s advancement of Christianity. Further imprisonment, torture and abuse of mind and body having failed, it was decided that Irene should be put to death. She was beheaded on the 5^th May 384.

Although St. Irene is not known to us as a biblical scholar, her very nature is an expression of the Scriptures as displayed in every aspect of her life on earth. She not only turned the other cheek but went to the aid of the parent that would have destroyed her and except for her intervention would have thereby destroyed himself. She saved her father’s life in order that he might save his own soul thereafter, by becoming a Christian himself.

While preaching the word of Christ she encountered the ever present dangers, yet managed to outlive three emperors. In the days when women were decidedly second class citizens, she commanded the respect of men and women alike, ultimately becoming a mother figure to Christian converts drawn from ranks of the worst enemies of Jesus Christ.

September the 14th is the feast day commemorating the elevation of the Holy Cross, and prophetically enough it was on this day in 1384 that St. Ephraim the great martyr and miracle worker was born in Attica, Greece. One of six children orphaned in early childhood there was little indication that a fatherless waif would, from such humble beginning, become one day an instrument as well as servant of God.

Α sickly child from birth, he seemed doomed to die as a child when his frantic mother brought her frail child to the Holy Monastery of Ammon dedicated to the Virgin Mary. Here he was admitted by the monks to relieve a grieving mother of what seemed to be a dying youngster. At first appearance it seemed that the boy’s days were numbered, but after tender care and prayer for the boy’s recovery the monks were delighted to see the boy regain his full health. Interpreted as a small miracle it served to convince the mother and child that his place was with these holy men who had given him renewed life, a life which thenceforth was pledged to the service of Jesus Christ.

For the next twenty-seven years Ephraim remained at the monastery which was located at Nea Makri, Attica, perilously close to the hordes that were to overrun the empire. Later he was made a priest of the church. His charm, stemming from the Holy Spirit that dwelled within him, won him many admirers and friends outside of the monastery.

The monasteries of the time of Ephraim were an integral part of the structure of the Byzantine Empire, institutions to whom even royalty looked for lay as well as clerical advice. Ephraim was among the most influential of the fourteenth century monks who helped to hold together a weakening empire. His help to the disadvantaged was inestimable and his spiritual inspiration joined that of other clerics in providing for the will and resolve that were to stand in good stead for the victims of the Ottoman oppressor who was to grasp the land but never conquer the Christian spirit of Greece.

At one point Ephraim felt he needed a freshening of his spirit and made the customary trip into the desert for prayer, that can come only from the solitude of a forbidding corner of the earth in which self-denial and asceticism come with the territory. He enjoyed the proximity to God found in solitude but yearned for his beloved monastery and returned after a short stay in the desert. But he was shattered when he returned because Ottoman marauders had laid waste to the monastery and the surrounding village.

The villagers had taken flight, but while searching among the ruins he was taken captive by a few of the barbarians who had lingered, and was dragged off to their tribal camp. This event presaged the ultimate fall of the empire since the city’s defences were intact, but the exposed Atticans were powerless in the face of the sheer weight of numbers of neighbouring hostiles. Taken in chains before the chieftains, he was ordered to be crucified inasmuch as he chose to serve the Master about whom they heard and should die in the same manner.

The whereabouts of the remains of Ephraim remained a mystery until they were unearthed in an excavation for a building, on January 2, 1950. It would have passed as just another skeleton until it was noticed that there issued forth from this fleshless form a sweet aroma only exuded by bodies of saints. When detailed research revealed that it had to be the remains of St. Ephraim, the sweet smelling saint was encased in glass and placed in a chapel specially erected as a shrine to him and is exuding its scent to this day in Nea Makri, Attica.

The shrine of St. Ephraim attracts pilgrims daily, some of whom have reported visions of the saint, while others have claimed miraculous cures through prayer on the site. Αn inspirational leader in life, he continues to uplift in spirits the hearts of those who believe in Jesus Christ as they visit this holy shrine. The chance discovery of Ephraim’s holy remains has given physical evidence to those of the Greek Orthodox faithful who can see for themselves the closest thing to divinity that there is to be seen. Icons and artifacts are in abundance but precious few relics of the saints remain. Happily, St. Ephraim is one of them.