ST IRENE OF CONSTANTINOPLE, VIRGIN AND MARTYR - 5 MAY

 

ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN MAY

Saints celebrated on the 5th of May

Prayer to the Angels and the Saints

Heavenly Father, in praising Your Angels and Saints we praise Your glory, for by honouring them we honour You, their Creator. Their splendour shows us Your greatness, which infinitely surpasses that of all creation.

In Your loving providence, You saw fit to send Your Angels to watch over us. Grant that we may always be under their protection and one day enjoy their company in heaven.

Heavenly Father, You are glorified in Your Saints, for their glory is the crowning of Your gifts. You provide an example for us by their lives on earth, You give us their friendship by our communion with them, You grant us strength and protection through their prayer for the Church, and You spur us on to victory over evil and the prize of eternal glory by this great company of witnesses.

Grant that we who aspire to take part in their joy may be filled with the Spirit that blessed their lives, so that, after sharing their faith on earth, we may also experience their peace in heaven. Amen.

ST IRENE OF CONSTANTINOPLE, VIRGIN AND MARTYR 

Saint Irene, also called Hirene, was a famous martyr in Constantinople, where three churches were built in her honour. However, the Bollandist Henschenius regrets very much that the Greeks tell many fabulous things about her live and her miracles, which are not at all worthy of being included in his work. He therefore only cites the Elogium, which is found in Basil's Menologium.

SHE BECAME A CHRISTIAN

According to this, Irene was the daughter of a respectable man named Licinius. As she was very beautiful, at the age of six she was locked in a high tower by her father with thirteen maids. There she was taught the Christian faith by an angel and was baptised not long after by St Timothy, the disciple of St Paul the Apostle, whereupon she trampled underfoot the pagan idols. Enraged at this, her father had her tied to a wild horse in order to kill her. 

She suffered no harm, however, but her father was killed by the animal. But his daughter's prayer brought him back to life, whereupon he embraced Christianity with his wife and 3,000 others. 

HER MARTYRDOM

Finally St Irene was seized for being a Christian by order of the governor Ampelianus and tortured in various ways. But since she was not at all willing to deny Christ, she was finally beheaded and buried. 

From this story Henschenius concludes that St Irene lived in the first century, and she might have been martyred under Domitian or Trajan. 

THE "GREAT MARTYR"

In another menologium she is called a "great martyr" and her mother is named as Lycinia. Her name is not in the Roman Martyrology, but she is mentioned in several other martyrologies.  In his appendix to May 5 the Bollandist Papebroch says that this St Irene is sometimes confused with S Herina, who is venerated at Lecce (Aletium) in Calabria. He lists a number of  places, which are named  after one or the other St Irene - first and foremost the island of Santorini in the Archipelagus, also Erini or Sant-Erini, which was formerly called Thera.

(Information from Stadler's Complete Encyclopedia of Saints, 1858)