Commemoration DAY of
St. Eustathius, His Wife Theopiste
and Their Two Sons,
and the Holy Virgins
Hermione and Catherine
St. Eustathius, His Wife Theopiste,
and Their Two Sons Agapius and Theopistus
The Greeks call this saint Eustathius, while the Latins call him Eustace. His story reminds us of the blessed Job and seems almost to be a Christian repetition of Job’s life. His life is recounted through a series of fascinating and miraculous events.
Like Job, Eustathius was a wealthy nobleman who had established a happy household and lived in Rome with his wife and two young sons. Although a pagan, he was a virtuous man and had earned a reputation as a courageous commander in the Roman army.
One day while hunting, he saw a magnificent stag and pursued it. After becoming separated from his companions, he miraculously saw a radiant image of the Crucifixion between the stag’s antlers. As he gazed in wonder at the vision, a voice came from the sign of the Cross, calling him to conversion and to become a Christian.
When the vision and the stag disappeared, he returned home and told his wife everything that had happened. She, too, had experienced a similar vision. Consequently, the entire family was baptized and received new names. The husband was called Eustathius, his wife Theopiste, meaning “faithful to God,” their elder son Agapius, meaning “beloved,” and the younger Theopistus, the masculine form of his mother’s name.
As a consequence of their conversion, they were deprived of their titles by the emperor and lost all their wealth. They therefore decided to leave Rome.
When they were about to board a ship for a foreign land, the captain saw that Eustathius’s wife was beautiful. As soon as she stepped aboard, he forced the others back onto shore and ordered the ship to depart. They had not sailed far when the captain died of a heart attack. The sailors, believing that his death had occurred because of what he had done to the woman, did not dare harm her. They took her to the land of the barbarians and respectfully entrusted her to the captain’s family. After learning what had happened, they treated her honorably for some time, benefiting from her wisdom and various abilities.
Heartbroken, Eustathius took his two sons and traveled in another direction. While crossing a river, however, he lost both children, one of whom was only about seven years old and the other nine. Through God’s providence, the two boys reached opposite banks of the river, where two different shepherds found and cared for them.
Eustathius himself barely managed to reach the shore. Having now lost his last earthly consolation—his children—he threw himself upon the ground and wept bitterly. Yet in the end he confessed before God that God is Lord of all things, including his family and his own life. Though overwhelmed by sorrow, he endured these losses with great patience and did not complain against God.
Eventually, in an effort to forget his grief, he entered the service of a landowner and remained there for many years. When his patience had thus been tested and crowned with victory, God rewarded him in a most unexpected way.
The emperor, who had previously made use of Eustathius’s military abilities in campaigns against the barbarians, remembered his former vigorous young commander when the borders of the Empire were once again threatened. He ordered that Eustathius be sought everywhere. Eventually he was found and brought before the emperor, who once again entrusted him with the task of stopping the advance of the barbarians.
Considering the army assigned to him insufficient, Eustathius asked the emperor for permission to recruit additional soldiers, and his request was granted. Among those who enlisted were his own two sons. Their appearance and conduct impressed him as those of honorable and trustworthy young men, and he appointed them as his personal guards.
At that time, a woman came from among the barbarians to the Roman army, saying that she too was Roman and had long ago been taken captive into a foreign land. She was brought before the commander. Neither could believe their eyes when, after so many years of separation, husband and wife suddenly found themselves standing face to face.
Theopiste fell to her knees, raised her hands toward heaven, and said:
“Glory and thanksgiving to our Savior Jesus Christ, who preserved me undefiled through all the trials He permitted me to endure. Glory to Providence, which has made me worthy to appear before my husband just as I was when I was separated from him.”
To the astonishment of everyone present, husband and wife embraced with immeasurable joy. They prayed that God would also make them worthy to find their lost children.
In the following days, while Theopiste was in the tent, she overheard one of her husband’s young guards say to the other:
“If only I could also find my father and mother, whom I lost when I was a child. The man who is now my father rescued me from the river and adopted me. I also had a brother, but I lost him as well.”
His companion replied in amazement that his own story was almost identical: he too had been rescued from a river.
Theopiste told her husband what she had heard. After questioning the young men, Eustathius became convinced that they were indeed the sons they had believed lost. Their happiness was complete when, through the mysterious workings of Divine Providence, every member of the family was reunited.
Unfortunately, their happiness did not last long.
After completely subduing the barbarians and establishing guards along the borders, Eustathius returned to Rome and received great honors. However, when he was invited to participate in a religious ceremony at the temple of the god of victory, he firmly refused, declaring that he was a Christian. He proclaimed that he owed his victories to God, the Creator of heaven and earth, whom he worshiped, and to Jesus Christ, in whom he believed and who had conquered the world.
As soon as he made this declaration, the emperor ordered the entire family to be thrown before lions. The lions, however, did not harm them.
Finally, all four were shut inside a bronze bull so that they might be tortured and killed by fire. The account of their martyrdom states that they transformed the furnace of torture into a place of prayer and peacefully and joyfully surrendered their souls to God, entering a happiness that this time would last forever.
They are believed to have been martyred around A.D. 120.
The Armenian Church commemorates them on the third Tuesday following the Feast of the Holy Cross.
St. Hermione the Virgin
The Greek form of her name is Hermione. She was a daughter of Philip the Evangelist, one of the seven deacons of the early Church, who “had four unmarried daughters who prophesied” (Acts 21:9).
According to tradition, two of these daughters, Hermione and Eutychis, decided to go to Ephesus. There they became disciples of a priest named Peter, “with whom they preached the Gospel and converted many to Christ.” Hermione was also endowed with the gift and skill of healing, through which she cured many people.
It is said that when the Roman Emperor Trajan came to Ephesus on his way to campaign against the Persians, he heard of Hermione as an influential preacher and sent men to find her and bring her before him.
After searching for a long time, the emperor’s men encountered her in a village without recognizing her and asked her where Hermione could be found. She first offered them hospitality and only afterward revealed that she herself was the woman they were seeking.
The men were taken by surprise. They were so grateful for her hospitality that they no longer wished to take her to the emperor, but Hermione willingly accompanied them.
When she appeared before the emperor, he attempted to persuade her to renounce Christianity. The saint remained steadfast in her convictions and declared that she was willing even to die for the love of Christ.
She was subjected to bitter tortures, which she endured courageously and fearlessly. Eventually, she prophesied that the emperor would return victorious from the military campaign he had undertaken. Impressed by the virgin’s endurance and pleased with her prophecy, the emperor released her.
Trajan’s successor, Hadrian, however, subjected Hermione to even more severe tortures, which she endured with astonishing courage. When she was taken to a pagan temple to offer sacrifice to the idols, the saint prayed and the idols were destroyed. Because of this, the emperor ordered her to be beheaded.
St. Catherine the Virgin
The holy virgin Catherine was the daughter of Constas, the governor of Alexandria. Possessing exceptional beauty and learning, she declared that she would marry only a man who surpassed her in every respect.
Catherine’s Christian mother took her to her spiritual teacher, who told her about the One who surpasses every earthly bridegroom. Catherine was baptized and was granted a vision of Christ, who gave her a ring as a sign of her betrothal to Him.
During a pagan festival, Catherine appeared before the emperor and exposed what she regarded as the errors of paganism. She converted fifty pagan philosophers who had been summoned by the emperor to refute her arguments.
Because of this, she was subjected to torture. However, the instruments prepared for her torture miraculously turned against the pagans and struck them instead.
After witnessing this miracle, the Empress Augusta and the commander Porphyrius, together with two hundred of his soldiers, became Christians. The enraged emperor ordered them to be beheaded.
The virgin Catherine was then put to death by the sword.
SCRIPTURE READINGS
~ Lamentations 3:22-56 ~
The steadfast love of the Lord never ceases, his mercies never come to an end; they are new every morning; great is your faithfulness. "The Lord is my portion," says my soul, "therefore I will hope in him." The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the soul that seeks him. It is good that one should wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord. It is good for one to bear the yoke in youth, to sit alone in silence when the Lord has imposed it, to put one's mouth to the dust (there may yet be hope), to give one's cheek to the smiter, and be filled with insults. For the Lord will not reject forever. Although he causes grief, he will have compassion according to the abundance of his steadfast love; for he does not willingly afflict or grieve anyone. When all the prisoners of the land are crushed under foot, when human rights are perverted in the presence of the Most High, when one's case is subverted —does the Lord not see it? Who can command and have it done, if the Lord has not ordained it? Is it not from the mouth of the Most High that good and bad come? Why should any who draw breath complain about the punishment of their sins? Let us test and examine our ways, and return to the Lord. Let us lift up our hearts as well as our hands to God in heaven. We have transgressed and rebelled, and you have not forgiven. You have wrapped yourself with anger and pursued us, killing without pity; you have wrapped yourself with a cloud so that no prayer can pass through. You have made us filth and rubbish among the peoples. All our enemies have opened their mouths against us; panic and pitfall have come upon us, devastation and destruction. My eyes flow with rivers of tears because of the destruction of my people. My eyes will flow without ceasing, without respite, until the Lord from heaven looks down and sees. My eyes cause me grief at the fate of all the young women in my city. Those who were my enemies without cause have hunted me like a bird; they flung me alive into a pit and hurled stones on me; water closed over my head; I said, "I am lost." I called on your name, O Lord, from the depths of the pit; you heard my plea, "Do not close your ear to my cry for help, but give me relief!"
~ 2 Timothy 3:10-15 ~
Now you have observed my teaching, my conduct, my aim in life, my faith, my patience, my love, my steadfastness, my persecutions, and my suffering the things that happened to me in Antioch, Iconium, and Lystra. What persecutions I endured! Yet the Lord rescued me from all of them. Indeed, all who want to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted. But wicked people and impostors will go from bad to worse, deceiving others and being deceived. But as for you, continue in what you have learned and firmly believed, knowing from whom you learned it, and how from childhood you have known the sacred writings that are able to instruct you for salvation through faith in Christ Jesus.
~ Holy Gospel of St. Matthew 5:1-12 ~
When Jesus saw the crowds, he went up the mountain; and after he sat down, his disciples came to him. Then he began to speak, and taught them, saying: "Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted. "Blessed are the meek, for they will inherit the earth. "Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they will be filled. "Blessed are the merciful, for they will receive mercy. "Blessed are the pure in heart, for they will see God. "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called children of God. "Blessed are those who are persecuted for righteousness' sake, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. "Blessed are you when people revile you and persecute you and utter all kinds of evil against you falsely on my account. Rejoice and be glad, for your reward is great in heaven, for in the same way they persecuted the prophets who were before you.