On May 5/18 in the late first century the holy Great-Martyr Irene departed to the Lord in the city of Ephesus. In this city she met her teacher Apeliannus—a man who was dear to her from childhood, who gave her an excellent education for that time, taught her “booklore”, told her about Christ and guided her to the Heavenly Kingdom. She chose a tomb for herself—a cave in a rock—allowing the stone to be rolled away only on the fourth day after her repose. When the time had elapsed, her body was not found in the tomb. The Lord probably took His faithful confessor to Heaven together with Her body, as was also the case with the Prophet Elias and the Apostle John the Theologian.
The One Who Came to Give Peace
The holy Great-Martyr Irene (born Penelope) lived in the apostolic age and was baptized with the name Irene by St. Timothy, a disciple of the Apostle Paul. For confessing faith in Christ and refusing to worship idols, St. Irene was tortured by six rulers in different cities, including her own father. She was warned about the impending persecutions by a raven that flew into her room and brought a snake in its beak. The victory over her enemies—human passions—was predicted to her by an eagle, which brought a wreath of flowers in its beak as a symbol of glory for her future feats in the name of the Lord.
Steadfast in her faith, she would instantly forgive her offenders, healing them and bringing them back to life. She combined her love for Christ and people with the courage of a warrior. Seeing the power of her faith, armed with God’s help (saws could not cut through her body, fire could not burn it up, and wild horses refused to trample her down, instead killing her tormentor, etc.), some of her persecutors were baptized together with the inhabitants of the cities under their control. After the torments she had suffered at the hands of her father Licinius, 3,000 people converted to Christ; after the torments inflicted by Zedekiah, 8,000 people converted; after the torments of Sabah, 30,000 were baptized; and after the torments of Numerian, 100,000 came to the faith. The angel of the Lord was always with her, comforting and helping the saint. Jesus Christ Himself visited her in prison, encouraging her before her future trials. If St. Irene had not been canonized as a great-martyr, then she could have been ranked among the Equal-to-the-Apostles, since she converted so many people to faith in Christ!
The name “Irene” translates from Greek as “peace”. It is no coincidence that even before Penelope’s Baptism, a dove flew into her room (the first of all birds, a bird symbolizing peace), bringing her an olive branch as a symbol of the grace of God. The angel who visited the maiden before her Baptism announced that she would be “a refuge and a haven of peace for many”, and therefore she would be named Irene in Baptism. The Great-Martyr Irene gives us PEACE in many senses of the word—an inner personal peace of mind, and peaceful coexistence with others (internal and external peace).
“The Special Irenic Spirit”
I experienced a special atmosphere of peace when I first came to the Church of the Great-Martyr Irene in Pokrovskoye in Moscow on Bright Week in 2024. After the Liturgy, I wanted to linger there. While I was standing by an icon, a woman named Photina came up to me and shared her life story. Her thirteen–year-old son Tikhon was seriously ill. She said she found peace by turning specifically to St. Irene and being at this very church. Incidentally, most parishioners testify to the especially grace-filled and peaceful atmosphere of the Church of the Great-Martyr Irene in Pokrovskoye, calling this phenomenon the “special Irenic spirit”. There are not many religious sites dedicated to the Great-Martyr Irene in Russia, only seventeen churches. But all of them are significant. There are ten churches, one chapel and six side-chapels in other, mostly monastic churches (at the Monasteries of St. Paphnutius of Borovsk, St. Cyril of White Lake, Uglich, of Prince Vladimir in Irkutsk, and at the Holy Trinity-St. Sergius Lavra). The seven churches were built in Moscow, Kerch, the village of Volgovo in the Leningrad region, the village of Korsun in the Orel region, the village of Irinovka in the Leningrad region, and in Rostov-on-Don. Three churches are currently under construction in the village of Mirny in the Ulyanovsk region, in the town of Pushkino in the Moscow region and in Kaliningrad.
Churches dedicated to St. Irene in Russia were built either by bearers of this name or their relatives. The first church dedicated to St. Irene was built in the early period of Christianity in Russia in Kiev (the eleventh century) by Grand Prince Yaroslav the Wise and his wife Princess Irina/Anna (Ingegerd; daughter of King Olaf of Sweden). The church was destroyed during the Mongol invasion of Batu Khan. In the nineteenth century, a monument (the “Irene Pillar”) was set up on the site of the church, consecrated as a chapel in 1855, but demolished in 1932. Only the memory remains of the first church dedicated to the Great-Martyr Irene.
Not only did the royalty built churches in honor of their patron saints. In the eighteenth to the twentieth centuries active builders of churches were merchants. For example, the chapel (now a church) at the Kerch Hospital was built in 1891 by the Moscow merchant Irina Forofontova.
In Moscow, both churches dedicated to the Great-Martyr Irene were built in the seventeenth century. One of them was on Vozdvizhenka Street (1629), built by the boyar V.I. Streshnev—probably a relative of Princess Irina Mikhailovna’s mother, Tsarina Eudoxia Lukyanovna (nee Streshneva). The other church was in the village of Pokrovskoye and founded by Tsar Michael Feodorovich and Tsarina Eudoxia Lukyanovna (1635) in honor of the patron saint of the eight-year-old Princess Irina Mikhailovna (1627–1679). Thus did the parents thank God for the birth of their firstborn and begged St. Irene to take their daughter under her protection.
The side-chapel dedicated to the Great-Martyr Irene at the Monastery of St. Paphnutius of Borovsk was built on the order of Princess Irina Mikhailovna herself during the reign of her brother, Tsar Alexei Mikhailovich (1645–1676).
The church in Pokrovskoye flourished in Irina Mikhailovna’s lifetime and during the reigns of her father Michael (1613–1645), brother Alexei and eldest nephew Fyodor Alexeyevich (1676–1682). After the fire during the reign of Catherine II (1762–1796) the church was rebuilt, and despite its being rededicated to the Holy Trinity with side-chapels dedicated to the holy Great-Martyrs Irene and Catherine, it became popularly known as “St. Irene’s Church” forever. In addition, the street where the church stood was named Irininskaya, and the three lanes adjacent to it became known as 1st, 2nd and 3rd Irininskaya Streets. By the nineteenth century, the village of Pokrovskoye had become an industrial suburb of Moscow, and the church gradually turned from a royal house church into a parish church. At that time, the number of parishioners grew steadily, and by decree of Emperor Alexander III, the church was renovated and significantly enlarged. The distinctive features of the church were a small room for confessions and a rare stone depiction of the “Savior in prison” in a niche with an iron grating.
In 1913, together with the whole country, St. Irene’s Church was preparing for the celebration of the 300th anniversary of the House of Romanov, and in 1911, a new four-tier iconostasis in the Old Russian style was installed. The presence of an icon depicting images of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker and Queen Alexandra, the Heavenly patrons of the last Russian Emperor St. Nicholas II and Empress Consort St. Alexandra Feodorovna, still reminds us that this church was originally a Romanov house church.
Remarkably, at different times some churches of the Great-Martyr Irene in one way or another were associated with international missions. Thus, the Church of the Great-Martyr Irene in Volgovo, built in 1812 by the former Finance Minister Fyodor Golubtsov on his estate and consecrated as a house church, in 1909 became the only Russian-Finnish Orthodox church in Russia and a hub of missionary activity for the spread of Orthodoxy among the Finns and the Estonians. Services were celebrated in Finnish and Russian here.
In 2013, with the blessing of Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, a representation of the Belarusian Exarchate was opened at St. Irene’s Church in Pokrovskoye. Archbishop Dimitry (Drozdov) of Vitebsk and Orsha, a wise clergyman and an experienced preacher, became the rector of the church. The Great-Martyr Irene is once again in the center of the unification of different Orthodox countries—Russia and Belarus, which were once a single nation.
Following the Example of the Heavenly Patroness
The Great-Martyr Irene was the first saint with this name to be canonized, becoming the patroness of all subsequent Saints Irene and bearers of this name. It seems that each of them bears some specific features characteristic of their Heavenly patroness.
St. Irene of Corinth (Greece; †258); St. Irene of Egypt (the third century); and St. Irene of Aquileia (Italy; the third—early fourth centuries) were canonized as martyrs. Like their Heavenly patroness, the Great-Martyr Irene, they courageously endured torments for Christ. It is noteworthy that St. Irene of Aquileia, along with her sisters Agapia and Chionia, were brought to trial to Makedon, the birthplace of the Great-Martyr Irene, where they were martyred, with St. Irene dying the day before Holy Pascha († 304).
The Hungarian Princess Irene-Piroska (1088–1134), who became the Byzantine Empress Consort and wife of Emperor John II Komnenos, was noted for her kind disposition and meekness. She gave birth to and raised eight children and proved herself as a peacemaker. She took care of Hungarian pilgrims who arrived in the Holy Land. Together with her husband, she founded the church and monastery of Christ Pantokrator in Constantinople. At the end of her life she was tonsured a nun with the name Xenia, and subsequently was recognized as a saint.
Princess Irina (Ingegerd), King Olaf of Sweden’s daughter, obtained a brilliant education for that time, as did her patron saint, the Great-Martyr Irene. She was highly educated, free as a true Viking-age woman, took an active part in public life, was distinguished by her intelligence, courage and significant influence on others, and often acted as a peacemaker. She was often approached to resolved various problems. The Princess took an active part in the construction of churches. Shortly before her repose in 1050 she was tonsured a nun with the name Anna. It was the first royal monastic tonsure in the principality. In the fifteenth century, St. Anna of Novgorod was canonized.
Irina Godunova (1557–1603), the wife of the last Tsar of the Rurikid Dynasty, Fyodor Ioannovich (son of Ivan the Terrible), lived in love and concord with her husband. Just like the Great-Martyr Irene and Princess Irina (Ingegerd), she was a brave and intelligent lady. She received Ecumenical Patriarchs in the Tsarina’s Golden Chamber, and was not afraid to make a welcoming speech. She spoke her word, stepped back and stood between her husband and her brother, the future Tsar Boris. It was the first instance of a Russian Tsarina’s public appearance (almost the only case at that time) recorded in the documents. The foreign guests admired the Tsarina’s intelligence. Tsar Fyodor Ioannovich, despite the boyars’ persuasions, did not send his wife to a convent, and after her husband’s death, she abdicated in favor of her brother Boris Godunov and became a nun at the Moscow Novodevichy Convent with the name Alexandra.
Irina Mikhailovna Romanova also shared some traits with her holy patroness. Both were born and raised in royal families 1,600 years apart. The first of them was born in the first century into the family of the ruler Licinius of Macendonia, the other—in the seventeenth century into the family of the Moscow Tsar Michael Feodorovich. The former was confined by her father into a tower so as not to show people her beauty ahead of time; the latter grew up in seclusion in the women’s quarters of the royal tower-chamber, away from prying eyes. The former refused to get married, longing to become Christ’s bride; the latter could not get married due to the lack of Orthodox princes in the world.
The holy Great-Martyr Irene meditated on the purpose of life and subsequently would say fervently and boldly that the meaning of life was Christ, and as a result of her preaching, thousands of people converted and were baptized. Irina Mikhailovna preached Christ through the quiet care of her loved ones. During the Russian Church Schism, the boyaryna Theodosia Morozova and the Old Believer Archpriest Avvakum Petrov wrote letters to Irina Mikhailovna, knowing her peacemaking disposition and hoping to influence the Tsar through her.
As you read the stories of all these women, you feel the invisible presence of the Great-Martyr Irene in their lives. She has always been in my life too, even when I didn’t know about it.
My Great-Martyr Irene
By the decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Soviet of the Kazakh SSR of May 18, 1945, the Makinka workers’ settlement was transformed to the town of Makinsk. Once again, St. Irene and peace go hand in hand. This is my hometown in faraway Kazakhstan—I was born many years later, which means that St. Irene was already my patroness by right of birth in this place. And it was not until 2020, the seventy-fifth anniversary of the town, that I learned about this date. My mother said she couldn’t recollect why they gave me this name; it wasn’t her favorite name, no one had advised her, and there were no relatives with this name in our family—they just named me Irina and that’s it. Now, with hindsight, my mother says, “It was God’s will, not ours.” Quite often, when fulfilling God’s will, we don’t realize why we’re doing it, but we do it because we think it’s right. In secular terms, we could call it intuition, but in spiritual life we understand that God’s Providence guides every person. Every single person! Without exception! One of the first acts of Divine Providence for me was my name—Irina.
There was a wonderful school in Makinsk with marvelous teachers, the level of training in which allowed children from the provinces of Kazakhstan to enroll in different universities of the country. In this small town there were many exiles and their descendants—educated people from different cities of our homeland, as well as people of various ethnic groups (Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Germans, Ingush people, Koreans), whom, as I now understand, the Great-Martyr Irene took under her wing, united, and pacified. Through her intercessions, our cultural and scientific enlightenment took place, and she slowly converted all of us to God.
She was with me in Tselinograd (now Akmolinsk in Kazakhstan) when I was baptized as a student in 1991. I don’t remember why I decided to get baptized—there were no special reasons—but I just realized that I wanted to do it. It was on that day that I bought an icon of the Great-Martyr Irene, but back then I hadn’t even figured out that I should read her Life.
On May 18, 2016, while attending the solemn Liturgy on the occasion of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the resumption of services at the Church of the Icon of the Savior, “Not-Made-by-Hand”, in Perovo in Moscow (now my parish church), it dawned on me that I was baptized in Kazakhstan almost exactly when the first Liturgy was celebrated at this church in Moscow on St. Irene’s Day!
St. Irene’s feast is celebrated at my parish church particularly solemnly, with a cross procession. St. Irene is one of the patron saints of our church, as services in it resumed on May 18, 1991. Our Heavenly patroness gathered many Irinas at this church, all with different characters and destinies.
I first came to this church for the Nativity Liturgy in 2014, and on the same day I met a student from the first and my favorite group of graduates, and a colleague from the Orthodox guides’ courses. They told me about the special veneration of St. Irene at this church, and it was a revelation to me. Little by little, we move towards some important stages of our lives, armed with new experience.
On May 18, 2010, on St. Irene’s feast and Museum Day, I first came to the Department of Museum Education in Kolomenskoye in Moscow.
In the summer of 2011, I wanted to go to Greece, but prices had increased significantly, so friends recommended that I go to Turkey. Although I didn’t like going there, this time I agreed, and even without inner resistance. When I arrived in Marmaris, I immediately chose a guided tour to Ephesus. At that time, I knew nothing about the ancient city of Ephesus, neither that it was the place where the Most Holy Theotokos spent the final years of Her life (according to tradition), nor that the last earthly preaching of my Heavenly patroness, the Great-Martyr Irene, took place in this city. She also fell asleep in the Lord there. I saw the ancient city ruins under the open sky and felt its atmosphere. The Most Holy Theotokos and the Great-Martyr Irene became even closer to me.
How little we appreciate our patron saints, how little we know about them, how little we pray to them, talk about them, or love them! But even when we forget them, they don’t forget us. Glory to God for everything! Thank Him for our Heavenly protectors!
