May: Day 5: Holy Great Martyr Irene

May: Day 5:
Holy Great Martyr Irene
 
(Lessons From Her Life:
a. Parents should choose a pious mentor for their children;
b. One should believe in God's providence; and
c. One should participate in the spread of the Christian faith)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Saint Irene, known as Penelope while a pagan, commemorated today in ecclesiastical hymns and readings, was baptized in her early youth by a disciple of the Holy Apostle Paul, the Holy Apostle Timothy († 93). The following is known about the circumstances of her conversion to the faith of Christ, from the story of her life by Saint Dimitri of Rostov. Brought up in a country palace, far from the distractions of city life, under the guidance of a venerable teacher and the elder Apeliannos, whom Irene’s father, a pagan, did not know that he professed the Christian faith. Penelope grew in all the virtues characteristic of true Christians, and thus the soil of her soul was completely prepared for the reception of the “good seed.” The time came, and the light of Christ shone in the soul brought up under Christian influence.

The external reason for this was such a significant event, which happened by the arrangement of God: one day, a dove flew into the room where Penelope was with her teacher and dropped an olive branch on the table. After this, an eagle flew in, from whose beak a wreath of flowers fell in front of Penelope, and finally a raven flew in through another window and released a small snake from its beak. Penelope and her teacher were amazed at such an unusual phenomenon, and when Apeliannos came to them, they told him about what had happened. The elder, after some reflection, said, turning to Penelope: "The dove signifies your meekness and purity; the olive branch expresses the grace of God, which will be communicated to you through Holy Baptism; the royal bird, the eagle, signifies that you will reign over your passions and rise above all your earthly striving for God; the crown of flowers signifies the reward with which the Lord will crown your exploits; the raven with the snake depicts an evil force, an enemy who will try to turn you away from good, wounding and tempting you with sorrows and persecutions. But you take courage! Know that the Lord will strengthen you and you will stand firm in sorrows for Christ, the Heavenly King."

“Who is this Christ, the King of Heaven?” the pagan-born woman began to ask the elder with curiosity; and as Apeliannos told her about Christ for the first time, Irene’s heart was inflamed with love for the Savior of the human race, and she insatiably desired to learn more and more about Him.

At that time, the Apostle Timothy, a disciple of the Holy Apostle Paul, was preaching the holy gospel in that area, the homeland of Saint Irene, in Illyricum. He baptized Penelope, who had miraculously come to know Christ, gave her the name Irene, which means “peace,” instructed her in the Christian teaching, predicted her suffering for the name of Christ and inspired her to stand firm on the saving path on which the Lord had placed her. And thus, having accepted the holy truth from the lips of the Apostle, Irene became a faithful follower of the divine teaching and planted it in Serbia and other places, converting her parents and many thousands of pagan people to Christ – through suffering, to which she was repeatedly subjected by the persecutors of the Christian faith, accompanied by countless signs and miracles; then by preaching, when she went around many Thracian cities, teaching the inhabitants the truths of the gospel and by the power of God performing many miracles.

Feeling the approach of death (when she was in the city of Ephesus), Saint Irene met with Apeliannos. Taking him and several other pious men with her, she went with them outside the city. There, entering a cave, she asked her companions to block the entrance to the cave with a stone after her death and gave up her soul to God. This was during the reign of Domitian or Trajan (81-117).

II. The life of the Holy Great Martyr Irene offers us the following lessons for our spiritual and moral edification.

a) First, it teaches that Christian parents should choose a pious mentor for their children. Only thanks to a pious mentor – the elder Apeliannos – was the soil of Irene’s soul completely prepared for the reception of the “good seed,” i.e., the acceptance of the faith of Christ. Meanwhile, how little care other parents take to find truly pious mentors for their children! Most parents think very little about to whom they entrust their children. They fully deserve to hear the reproaches with which Saint John Chrysostom once reproached his contemporaries. “Now,” he says, “people care more about horses than about children, for, choosing a charioteer, they carefully look whether he is not a fool, a drunkard, a thief? And when their children need a leader, they accept whoever they meet, and do not at all notice: is there in him an ungodly delusion, will he infect the young soul with spiritual drunkenness, will he steal from the children the vows given to God at holy baptism and the right to eternal blessedness?" ("Gospel of John", Discourse 60). So no matter how pious the parents themselves are, and no matter how much they try to sanctify the hearts of their children in their infancy; but if they later leave them to the guidance of an impious teacher, temptation and destruction are inevitable. Julian the Apostate received a good education from his parents, but having later become attached to pagan teachers, he was so corrupted by them that he not only became an idolater, but also the most dangerous enemy of Christianity (Sozomen, "Church History", Bk. 3; Theodoret, "Church History", Bk. 3, Ch. 2).

b) The second lesson we learn from the life of the Holy Great Martyr Irene is that we must believe in the constant care of the all-wise and all-good providence of God. It was not by chance, but by order of God's providence, that a dove, an eagle and a raven flew into Irene's room and dropped an olive branch, a wreath of flowers and a snake on the table. All this was supposed to convince Irene to accept Christianity and live according to the rules of the holy faith.

c) Finally, the life of the Holy Great Martyr Irene, dedicated to the spread of the Christian faith among the pagans, teaches us, to the best of our ability, to assist the preachers of the true Christian teaching by praying for them, by loving them, and by donating to the work of evangelism, and also to help people rise from their moral falls by awakening in them a sense of awareness of their dangerous moral state. 

 

Source: A Complete Annual Cycle of Short Teachings, Composed for Each Day of the Year. Translated by John Sanidopoulos.