Holy Mothers Olympias the Deaconess (+408–410) and Eupraxia the Virgin (+413)
Saint Olympias the Deaconess was the daughter of the senator Anisius Secundus. While the saint was still very young her parents betrothed her to a pious young man. As soon as Olympias came of age the wedding was to take place, but soon her bridegroom died. The blessed one did not wish to marry and chose the life of virginity.
After the death of her mother and father Olympias inherited great wealth, which she distributed generously to the poor, to orphans and widows, and gave without stint to churches and monasteries, hospitals, and shelters for the infirm and for pilgrims.
The Patriarch Nectarius (381–397) appointed the holy mother a deaconess, and she carried out her duties diligently and blamelessly.
When hierarchs visited Constantinople, Olympias gave them great help and served them with love: Amphilochius of Iconium, Onesimus of Pontus, Gregory the Theologian, Peter of Sebaste, Epiphanius of Cyprus…
Saint John Chrysostom (+407; commemorated 13 November) valued the blessed mother highly. Olympias, together with the other deaconesses, suffered greatly at the innocent hierarch’s being driven from his see without trial. When Chrysostom was leaving the church for the last time, he called her to him together with the deaconesses Pentadia, Procla and Silvina, and told them that the case raised against him was apparently drawing to its end and that they would probably not see him again; then he asked them not to leave the church and to obey the hierarch who would be appointed in his place.
After John Chrysostom’s banishment the cathedral church of Hagia Sophia burned down. The fire spread to the neighbouring buildings too and consumed a large part of the city. All the supporters of the banished hierarch were accused of the crime. Saint Olympias too was interrogated. Although no evidence at all was found against her, she was nevertheless made to pay a large fine, supposedly for hiring the arsonists. After this the blessed one left Constantinople and went to the city of Cyzicus (on the Sea of Marmara); but her enemies did not stop persecuting her: the holy mother was seized and in 405 exiled to Nicomedia, where she endured many afflictions and sorrows. From his exile the hierarch John Chrysostom wrote to the blessed one, comforting and encouraging her. “There is only one thing to be feared,” he wrote, “and that is sin. Everything else is a fable: treachery or flattery, falsehood or fawning, evil speaking, slander, loss of property, exile, the sharpest swords, the sea, and even the whole world risen up against thee! Whatever these trials and troubles may be, they are temporary and quickly pass; they exist only for the corruptible body, and can do no harm to a valiant soul!” “Let nothing that happens trouble thee; do not call on this man or that, do not chase after shadows, for human help is a shadow. Call unceasingly on Jesus, whom thou servest!”
Saint Olympias died in exile in 409. The blessed one appeared to the bishop of Nicomedia and commanded that her body be placed in a coffer and given to the sea: “Wherever the waves cast the coffer ashore, let my body be buried there,” she told the bishop. The holy remains floated to a place called Brochthoi, near Constantinople. The inhabitants of the place, to whom this was revealed from on high, reverently brought the saint’s body out of the sea and buried it in the church of the Apostle Thomas. Later, during an invasion of barbarians, this church burned down, but the venerable mother’s relics remained unharmed. In the time of the Patriarch Sergius (610–638) the holy relics were translated to Constantinople and laid in the women’s monastery founded by Saint Olympias herself.
The Venerable Eupraxia was the daughter of Antigonus, a nobleman of Constantinople and a kinsman of the holy and pious King Theodosius the Great (379–395).
The rich and influential Antigonus and his wife Eupraxia were distinguished by the fear of God and mercy. They too named their only daughter Eupraxia. Antigonus soon died, after which the mother withdrew from the court and, on the pretext of visiting her estates, went with her daughter to Egypt. Here, near the Thebaid, was the women’s monastery of Tabennisi, with a strict rule. The life of the nuns attracted the pious widow. She wished to help this monastery, but the abbess Theodula refused, declaring that the nuns had entrusted themselves wholly to the Lord and did not wish to acquire any earthly treasure. The superior accepted only candles, incense and oil.
At this time little Eupraxia was seven years old. She liked the monastic life and wished to stay in the monastery. Her mother asked her daughter to be humble, never to think of her noble birth, and to give herself diligently to the service of the Lord and the sisters. Soon Eupraxia the elder (commemorated 12 January) died. When he learned of this, King Theodosius sent her daughter a letter reminding her that at the age of five her parents had betrothed her to the son of a senator, and that he now wished Eupraxia to fulfil the promise her mother and father had made. In her letter in reply the saint told the king that she had already joined the number of the brides of Christ, and asked him to distribute the estates left to her by inheritance to the Church and the poor.
Eupraxia made her labours stricter and stricter. At first she took food once a day, then once in two or three days, and at last once a week. The blessed one worked diligently in the bakery, washed the dishes, swept the storerooms, and served the sisters with love.
The enemy of the human race did the blessed mother much harm: once, when she was drawing water from the well, she fell in, and the sisters saved her; while chopping wood for the bakery she struck her foot with the axe and was badly injured; she fell down the stairs and injured her eye… Eupraxia bore all these trials with patience. For her tireless labours the Lord granted His chosen one the gift of wonderworking: through her prayer a deaf and dumb child and a crippled one were healed, and a possessed woman was freed from the captivity of the evil one… People began to bring the sick to the monastery in hope of help… But Eupraxia became more and more humble and counted herself the last among sinners. Shortly before the holy mother’s end the abbess saw a vision: in a radiant hall Eupraxia bowed down before the King seated on a throne and surrounded by angels, and the All-holy Virgin showed the bride of Christ the bright dwelling prepared for her and told her that she would settle there in ten days. The abbess and the sisters wept bitterly, not wishing to be parted from Eupraxia. The saint herself, when she learned of the vision, wept too, for she considered herself unprepared for passing into eternity. Eupraxia felt unwell, took to her bed, and ten days later, at the age of thirty, reposed in peace (+413).
