By Fr. George Dorbarakis
It is admirable the case of the little princess, later empress and afterwards mother of an emperor, who became a nun, Helen Dragas and later Ypomoni. For certainly it is not easy for one to leave honors and glories, even in a period of decline, in order to shut oneself in a monastery, living as a “common” mortal, performing even the most difficult and “lowly” obediences. This shows a particular humility, which constitutes the prerequisite for one to receive richly the grace of God.
What is even more wonderful, however, is that not only did she become a nun, but she also reached such measures of holiness that our Church recognized them, so as to proclaim also her sanctity. The miracles, for example, that have been recorded from her interventions, earlier and more recent, are many, like the case of that taxi driver who, on this very day only a few years ago, while transporting to Loutraki from Athens a simple nun and revealing his problem – skin cancer – received her blessing, which immediately functioned as a healing from his illness. And when after a small stop he looked for her, she had disappeared; no one had seen her, wherever he asked around where he had stopped, and he recognized her a little later in the medical office that he visited, because the physician had set up her holy icon.
The paradox of her life, however: from empress to become a simple and humble nun and indeed to become sanctified, is removed and understood when one sees her whole course from the beginning. Helen, the Venerable Ypomoni, lived with a sense of the presence of God, with care to fulfill His holy commandments, with humility and especially with love toward her fellow men, one might say, from her very birth. Whether in the palaces or in the monastery, whether a young girl or the wife of an emperor, she essentially lived the same life, something which clearly proves that the well-disposed person, the person who truly loves Christ, is not influenced by the external conditions of life, but by that which he has set as the firm goal of his life.
In other words, the Venerable Ypomoni is one more case of a truly holy person, who could say what the Apostle Paul also said: “I consider all things to be refuse, that I may gain Christ” - I consider everything rubbish in order to be with Christ. And perhaps that which makes us remain even more astonished in her case is the fact that she lived holily and chastely even while she was still in the great positions and had not yet been enclosed in the monastery. As if nothing earthly touched her, as if she were a kind of dove flying above the confusion of this world. And indeed among other things the Hymnographer of her treats her in this way. He calls us to praise her, she who was a glorious queen, because like a devout dove she flew from the world of confusion to the tents of heaven and lived with true love, with ascetic struggle, with humility: “Let us praise the renowned queen, Ypomoni the venerable, the devout dove that flew from the world of confusion to the tents of heaven, in unwavering love, asceticism and humility” (Apolytikion).
We have noted again that the grace of a Venerable one and generally of a simple person we see clearly from what he causes in us when we approach him. A saint always lifts us spiritually, makes us see the true purpose of life, gives us an impulse for our better self to be revealed. With the saint, that is, the laughter of our soul comes forth; we truly become human. This with a single word that the saint has — the grace of God — this he also transmits. How does the Lord Himself say it? “The tree is known by its fruit.” Exactly this was happening also with the Venerable Ypomoni. The approach to her by every person led to the growth of the person in God, to the manifestation of his gifted self. And these are not words that we say today in praise. It is the experience of the time, recorded by people who knew her, and indeed saints. Let us hear for example what the first Ecumenical Patriarch after the fall of the City, Gennadios Scholarios, says in a specific discourse of his “On the Repose of the Mother of Emperor Constantine XI, the Holy Ypomoni”:
“The blessed Queen, when some wise man visited her, he departed astonished at her own wisdom. When some ascetic met her, he departed after the meeting ashamed of the poverty of his own virtue compared with the virtue of that woman. When some prudent man met her, he added greater prudence to his own. When some lawgiver met her, he became more careful. When some judge conversed with her, he realized that he had before him a living Canon of Law. When some courageous man (met her), he felt himself conquered, feeling astonishment at her patience, her prudence and the strength of her character. When some philanthropist approached her, he acquired a more intense sense of philanthropy. When some lover of amusements met her, he acquired prudence, and, recognizing humility in her person, he repented. When some zealot of piety came to know her, he acquired greater zeal. Every suffering person, by meeting with her, quieted his pain. Every arrogant man punished himself for his excessive self-love. And in general there was no one who came into communication with her and did not become better.”
And further:
“Her contemporary, the deacon John Eugenikos, brother of Mark Eugenikos, Archbishop of Ephesus, in his Consolatory Discourse to Constantine Palaiologos on the repose of his mother the Holy Ypomoni summarizes: ‘As for that ever-memorable Lady your Mother, all things while she lived were exceptional: the faith, the works, the lineage, the manner, the life, the word; and all together were modest and worthy of divine honor, and just as she lived as a participant in divine Providence, so also she ended.’”
The “Holy Lady,” as George Phrantzes calls her, joined the meaning of her monastic name (Ypomoni, Patience) with the manner in which she faced both the happy moments and the countless difficulties of her whole life. Patience in life, in deed, and in monastic name. “By her patience she acquired her soul” (Sacred Metropolis of Monemvasia and Sparta).
The only thing that perhaps spontaneously comes to us also to do before the Venerable Ypomoni is to magnify her as our Church also does: “Rejoice, Ypomoni, you who proved to be a model of patience, pillar of chastity, unshakable wall of the virtues and treasury of love, you who are the glorious summit of the God-inspired queens.”
Source: Translated by John Sanidopoulos.
