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Some readers may consider such narratives fascinating, even inspiring, others may find them
strange or even distasteful. The fact is that through them, and their excellent presentation in the
Miterikon, we can meet some exceptional women of the past and share a part of their personal lives
and interaction with their social surroundings; the stories of women saints are there to be re‐read –
and re‐written– in many different ways.
Keywords: Miterikon, Holy Women, Orthodox Church, Women History
Anna‐Efrosyni MIHOPOULOU
M.A. in Women’s Studies (University of York, UK)
Researcher and Archivist of Women’s History (Athens, Greece).
delfys@otenet.gr
Notes
1
Dimitrios Tsamis, editor, Miterikon: Diigiseis[, apofthegmata] kai bioi ton agion miteron tis
erimou, askitrion kai osion gynaikon tis Orthodoxou Ekklisias [Miterikon. Narratives[, sayings] and
lives of the holy mothers of the desert, women ascetics and saints of the Orthodox Church], vols. I,
II, III (Thessaloniki: “Saint Makrina” Sisterhood, 1990, 1991, 1992); vol. IV (Alexandroupoli: Holy
Nunnery “Panagia of Evros”, 1993); vol. V (Thessaloniki: Holy Nunnery of Zoodohos Pigi‐
Chrysopigi, Chania, 1995); vol. VI (Thessaloniki: Holy Isychastirion of Timios Prodromos,
Akritochori, 1996); vol. VII (Thessaloniki: Holy Isychastion for Women I Metamorphosis tou
Sotiros, Milesi, 1997). (The “sayings” are referred to in the title of the first volume only). Miterika
follow the tradition of paterika (“fathers’ books”), a well known genre of Byzantine religious
literature.
2
The names of the translators are mentioned on the first pages of the volumes.
3
Most extensively represented are the areas of Egypt, Palestine, Syria, Asia Minor et al. and the
prominent cities of the times, i.e. Rome, Constantinople, Antioch, Alexandria et al. “The status of
women was not the same in Jewish, Greek, and Roman cultures […] the liberty exhibited by
patrician Roman women on the Aventine or in the Holy Land contrasted sharply with the selfeffacement
of oriental women […]”(Monique Alexandre, “Early Christian Women”, in Georges
Duby and Michelle Perrot, general editors, A History of Women: From Ancient Goddesses to
Christian Saints (Cambridge, Massachussets: Harvard University Press, 1993), 414).
4
D. Tsamis, general introduction to Miterikon, vol. I, 20.
5
Four women hymnographers are known. On the absence of “women’s voices”, see also
Alexandre, “Early Christian Women”, 412.
6
D. Tsamis, general introduction to Miterikon, vol. I, 15, 16.
7
Vasilissa was tortured to death just outside Nicomedia; three sisters, Metrodhora, Menodhora
and Nymphodhora, became martyrs in AD 235 and were buried by the hot springs to the east of
cape Poseidonion; from Nicomedia Diocletianus started the last –and maybe most fierce–
persecution of Christians (AD 303‐311), whose victims would be his own wife Valleria and
daughter Balleria, as well as St. Euphemia from Chalcedon. In the first Christian centuries many
women believers endeavored to convert their relatives (Alexandre, “Early Christian Women, 442‐
444).
8
The Orthodox Church honors her, together with Constantine, on May 21, the Catholic Church on
August 18.
9
Miterikon, vol. II, 332‐349. What St. Constantinus seems to have actually done, is to urge his
mother to be baptized (ibid., vol. II, 336, fn. 13).
10
The discovery of the Holy Cross by St. Helena is annually celebrated on September 14. This text
maintains that St. Helena left part of the Cross in the care of the patriarch of Jerusalem, while the
rest she entrusted to the patriarch of Constantinople. She also brought the nails of Jesus’
crucifixion to her son, who put them on his helmet and on the harness of his horse.
11
Ibid., 347.
12
Ibid., 336, fn. 13. Helena and Constantinus lived in Nicomedia, Bitnynia, one of the four capital
cities of the empire. Constantinus succeeded his father after he died in Eboracum (York) in AD 306
(ibid., 332, fn. 1 and 334, fn. 7).
13
Constantinus married Minervina and had a son, Crispus, whom he had killed – an act associated
with his second wife, Fausta, daughter of Maximianus, whom he also had killed afterwards (ibid.,