Tag: Byzantium

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Saint of the Day – 14 September – Saint Aelia Flaccilla

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saint Aelia Flavia Flaccilla, known as Aelia Flacilla or Flacilla, was a Roman empress and may have been the daughter of Claudius Antonius, Prefect of Gaul. She was the first wife of Emperor Theodosius I. She was of Spanish descent. During her marriage to Theodosius, she gave birth to two sons, the future Emperors Arcadius and Honorius, as well as a daughter, Aelia Pulcheria.

Aelia Flacilla was a zealous supporter of the Nicene Creed, and she was considered a pillar of the Church and model of Christian virtue by Saint Gregory of Nyssa and others. She died in 385 of natural causes.

"The greatness of the good gift given her made her love for Him who gave it all the greater, so she bestowed every kind of attention on the maimed and the mutilated, declining all aid from her household and her guards, herself visiting the houses where the sufferers lodged, and providing every one with what he required. She also went about the chambers of the churches and ministered to the wants of the sick, herself handling pots and pans, and tasting broth, now bringing in a dish and breaking bread and offering morsels, and washing out a cup and going through all the other duties which are supposed to be proper to servants and maids. To them who strove to restrain her from doing these things with her own hands she would say, "It befits a sovereign to distribute gold; I, for the sovereign power that has been given me, am giving my own service to the Giver."

-Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History (Book V.18)

"It appears that, during the reign of Valens, had some dispute with his own clergy at Cyzicus, and had in consequence seceded from the Arians, and retired to Bithynia, near Constantinople. Here multitudes resorted to him; some also gathered from different quarters, a few with the design of testing his principles, and others merely from the desire of listening to his discourses. His reputation reached the ears of the emperor, who would gladly have held a conference with him. But the Empress Flacilla studiously prevented an interview from taking place between them; for she was the most faithful guard of the Nicene doctrines, and feared lest Eunomius might, by his powers of disputation, induce a change in the sentiments of the emperor."

-Sozomen, Ecclesiastical History (Book VII)
Posted in SAINT of the DAY

Saint of the Day – 27 July – Saint Anthusa of Mantinea

Posted on by AnaStpaul

Saint Anthusa of Mantinea or the Confessor. She is easily confused with Saint Anthusa the daughter of the iconoclast emperor Constantine V, but it was Saint Anthusa of Mantinea whom he summoned to ask for prayers for the labouring mother of Saint Anthusa of Constantinople, the infant daughter who was subsequently named after her.

She was an anchoress and abbess in Constantinople during the 8th century.

After the death of her parents while still very young, the saint distributed her inheritance, left her family home, and withdrew to a cave. Ninety virgins gathered around her, entrusted themselves to her guidance, and followed her example. She founded two monasteries, one for men and the other for women, and became abbess of the monastery for nuns, who “were known for their obedience to their abbess and for their spiritual discipline”.

She openly defied Emperor Constantine V’s iconoclastic prohibitions, so she, her nuns, and her nephew, who was abbot of the second monastery, were arrested and tortured. When Anthusa correctly prophesied that the emperor’s wife, who was close to death from childbirth, would safely deliver twins, a boy and a girl, the empress intervened. Anthusa’s life was spared, and the empress donated several estates to her. The empress’ daughter was named after Anthusa, educated by her, and also became a saint, founding the first orphanage in the Christian world.

Saint Anthusa of Constantinople, daughter of the emperor

Anthusa returned to her monastery, where she lived to old age. She died in 759 and was buried in her cell.