The Holy Great Martyr Euphemia

Life

This holy woman is celebrated on September 16, when she suffered. In this place, however, the wonderworking of her honorable relics is commemorated, which was manifested during the Fourth Ecumenical Council in Chalcedon. That Council was convened in the time of Emperor Marcian and Pulcheria in the year 451, after the death of Emperor Theodosius the Younger. The occasion for the convocation of this Council was the heresy of Dioscorus, Patriarch of Alexandria, and Eutyches, Archimandrite of Constantinople, who spread the false teaching that in Christ the Lord there were not two natures, divine and human, but only one — the divine. At this Council the most prominent roles were played by Anatolius, Patriarch of Constantinople, and Juvenal, Patriarch of Jerusalem. Since no definitive resolution could be reached through disputations and proofs from either side, Patriarch Anatolius proposed that both the Orthodox and the heretics write their confessions of faith and place them in the reliquary in which lay the relics of Saint Euphemia. To this all agreed. Two confessions of faith were thus written and placed upon the breast of the great martyr; the reliquary was closed and sealed with the imperial seal, and a military guard was posted. Then all spent three days in fasting and prayer. On the fourth day, when the tomb was opened, they beheld the Orthodox confession of faith in the right hand of the saint and the heretical one beneath her feet. Thus was the dispute resolved by the power of God in favor of Orthodoxy. In the time of Emperor Heraclius, the relics of Saint Euphemia were translated from Chalcedon to Constantinople, to the church bearing her name near the Hippodrome. The iconoclast Emperor Leo the Isaurian ordered that those relics be cast into the sea; but by a miraculous means the reliquary was conveyed to the island of Lemnos and placed in the church of the Holy Martyr Glyceria. Only in the time of Empress Irene was the reliquary with the relics returned again to Constantinople to its former place. From these relics blood flowed from time to time, which helped the sick and the afflicted.

From the Hymn of Praise

The Lord loves the penitent,For them He suffered,To repentance He calls sinners,And He calls them even now.