Eastern Rite ~ Feasts of 9 November AM 7533

Today is the Feasts of Our Venerable Mother Matrona and of the Venerable Theoctiste of Lesbos.

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Saint Matrona, Abbess of Constantinople was born in the city of Perge Pamphylia (Asia Minor) in the fifth century. They gave her in marriage to a wealthy man named Dometian. When her daughter Theodota was born, they resettled in Constantinople. The twenty-five-year-old Matrona loved to walk to the temple of God. She spent entire days there, ardently praying to the Lord and weeping for her sins.

At the church, the saint met two pious Eldresses, Eugenia and Susanna, who from their youth lived there in asceticism, work and prayer. Matrona began to imitate the God-pleasing life of an ascetic, humbling her flesh by abstinence and fasting, for which she had to endure criticism by her husband.

Her soul yearned for a full renunciation of the world. After long hesitation, Saint Matrona decided to leave her family and entreated the Lord to reveal whether her intent was pleasing to Him. The Lord heard the prayer of His servant. Once, during light sleep, she had a dream that she had fled from her husband, who was in pursuit of her. The saint concealed herself in a crowd of monks approaching her, and her husband did not notice her. Matrona accepted this dream as a divine directive to enter a men’s monastery, where her husband would not think to look for her.

She gave her fifteen-year-old daughter to be raised by the Eldress Susanna, and having cut her own hair and disguised herself in men’s attire, she went to the monastery of Saint Bassion (October 10). There the Nun Matrona passed herself off as the eunuch Babylos and was accepted as one of the brethren. Apprehensive lest the monks learn that she was a woman, the saint passed her time in constant quietude and much work. The brethren marvelled at the great virtue of Babylos.

One time the saint was working in the monastery vineyard with the other monks. The novice monk Barnabas noted that her earlobe was pierced and asked about it. “It is necessary, brother, to till the soil and not watch other people, which is not proper for a monk,” answered the saint.

After a certain while it was revealed in a dream to Saint Bassion, the igumen of the monastery, that the eunuch Babylos was a woman. It was also revealed to Acacius, igumen of the nearby Abraham monastery. Saint Bassion summoned Saint Matrona and asked in a threatening voice why she had entered the monastery: to corrupt the monks or to shame the monastery.

With tears, the saint told the igumen about all her past life, about her husband, hostile to her efforts and prayers, and about the vision directing her to go to the men’s monastery. Convinced that her intent was pure and chaste, Saint Bassion sent Saint Matrona to a women’s monastery in the city of Emesa. In this monastery the saint dwelt for many years, inspiring the sisters by her high monastic achievement. When the Abbess died, by the unanimous wish of the nuns the Nun Matrona became head of the convent.

The fame of her virtuous activities, and miraculous gift of healing, which she acquired from the Lord, spread far beyond the walls of the monastery. Dometian also heard about the deeds of the nun. When Saint Matrona learned that her husband was coming to the monastery and wanted to see her, she secretly went off to Jerusalem, and then to Mount Sinai, and from there to Beirut, where she settled in an abandoned pagan temple. The local inhabitants learned of her seclusion and began to come to her. The holy ascetic turned many from their pagan impiety and converted them to Christ.

Women and girls began to settle by the dwelling of the nun and soon a new monastery was formed. Having fulfilled the will of God, revealed to her in a dream, the saint left Beirut and journeyed to Constantinople where she learned that her husband had died. With the blessing of her spiritual Father, Saint Bassion, the ascetic founded a women’s monastery in Constantinople, to which sisters from the Beirut convent she founded also transferred. The Constantinople monastery of Saint Matrona was known for its strict monastic rule and the virtuous life of its sisters.

In extreme old age, Saint Matrona had a vision of the heavenly Paradise and the place prepared for her there after 75 years of monastic labour. At the age of one hundred, Saint Matrona blessed the sisters, and quietly fell asleep in the Lord.

Troparion — Tone 8

The image of God was truly preserved in you, O Mother, / for you took up the Cross and followed Christ. / By so doing, you taught us to disregard the flesh, for it passes away; / but to care instead for the soul, since it is immortal. / Therefore your spirit, O holy Mother Matróna, rejoices with the angels.

Kontakion — Tone 8

You passed through the storm of life without faltering, chosen and godly Mother Matróna, / guided to the harbour of life, where you sing hymns to the Deliverer. / You ever pray that Christ may grant us grace and mercy; / you preserve the flock which you painstakingly gathered!

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Saint Theoctiste was born in the city of Methymna on the island of Lesbos. At an early age, she was left a complete orphan, and relatives sent her to a monastery to be raised. The girl was happy to be removed from the world of sin, and she liked the monastic life, the long church services, monastic obedience, the strict fasting and unceasing prayer. She learned much of the singing, prayer and psalmody by heart.

In the year 846 when she was already eighteen years old, she set off with the blessing of the abbess, on the Feast of the Resurrection of Christ, to a neighbouring village to visit her sister and she remained there overnight. Arabs invaded the settlement, and they took captive all the inhabitants, loaded them on a ship, and by morning they were at sea.

The brigands took the captives to the desolate island of Paros so that they might examine them in order to assign a value to each when they were sold at the slave market. The Lord helped the young maiden to flee, and the Arabs did not catch her. From that time Saint Theoctiste dwelt on the island for 35 years. An old church in the name of the Most Holy Theotokos served as her dwelling, and her food was sunflower seeds. All her time was spent in prayer.

Once, a group of hunters landed upon the island. One of them, pursuing his prey, went far off from the coast into the forest and suddenly he saw the church. He went into the church so as to offer up a prayer to the Lord. After the prayer, the hunter saw what looked like a human form in a dim corner, not far from the holy altar table, through thick cobwebs. He went closer and heard a voice, “Stay there, fellow, and come no closer to shame me since I am a naked woman.” The hunter gave the woman his outer clothing and she came out from concealment. He beheld a grey-haired woman with a worn face, calling herself Theoctiste. With a weak voice, she told of her life fully devoted to God.

When she finished her story, the saint asked the hunter, if he happened to come to this island again, that he should bring her a particle of the Presanctified Gifts. During all her time of living in the wilderness she not once was granted to partake of the Holy Mysteries of Christ.

A year later, the hunter again arrived upon the island and brought a small vessel with a particle of the Holy Mysteries. Saint Theoctiste met the Holy Gifts in the church, fell down to the ground and prayed long with tears. Standing up, she took the vessel and with reverence and in the fear of God she received the Body and Blood of Christ.

On the following day, the hunter saw the dead body of the nun Theoctiste in the church. After digging a shallow grave, the hunter placed the venerable body of the nun in it. As he did so, he impudently cut off her hand, so as to take with him part of the relics of the great saint of God. All night the ship sailed upon a tempestuous sea, and in the morning it found itself at the very place from which it began. The man then perceived that taking the relic was not pleasing to God.

He returned to the grave and placed the hand with the body of the saint. After this, the ship sailed off unhindered. On the journey, the hunter told his companions everything that had happened on the island. Listening to him, they all decided immediately to return to Paros, to venerate the relics of the great ascetic, but they could not find her holy body in the grave.

Troparion — Tone 8

By a flood of tears, you made the desert fertile, / and your longing for God brought forth fruits in abundance. / By the radiance of miracles you illumined the whole universe! / O our holy mother Theoctiste, pray to Christ our God to save our souls!