Venerable Martyr Eudocia

Life

She lived in Heliopolis, a city of Phoenicia, in the time of the reign of Trajan. First a great profligate, then a penitent, an ascetic, and at last a martyr. Through her debauchery she had amassed an enormous fortune. The turning point in her life was brought about, by God's Providence, by a certain elderly monk named Germanus, and this inadvertently. Having come to the city on business, he lodged with a certain Christian whose house adjoined the house of this Eudocia. When he began at night, according to monastic custom, to read the Psalter and a certain book on the Last Judgment, Eudocia heard him and attentively began to listen to his words until the very end. Fear and dread seized her, so that she remained wakeful until dawn. And as soon as dawn came, she sent her servants to beg that monk to come to her. Germanus came, and between them a long conversation began about what the elderly monk had read the previous night, and about the faith and salvation in general. The result of these conversations was that Eudocia begged the local bishop to baptize her. After baptism she gave all her property to the church to be distributed to the poor, dismissed her servants and slaves, and withdrew to a women's monastery. And thus she devoted herself wholly and resolutely to the monastic life — to obedience, patience, vigil, prayer, and fasting — so that after thirteen months she was chosen as abbess. She lived in the monastery for fifty-six years and was counted worthy before God of such grace that she even raised the dead. When a persecution of Christians arose under a certain prince Vincentius, the holy Eudocia was beheaded with a sword. Behold a wondrous example of how a vessel of impurity can be cleansed, sanctified, and filled with precious heavenly fragrance by the grace of the Holy Spirit.

From the Hymn of Praise

### VENERABLE MARTYR EUDOCIA