Life
Saint Eudokia lived in the second century, in the time of Emperor Trajan, in the city of Heliopolis in Phoenician Syria (in the region of present-day Lebanon). Her life is one of the most striking testimonies to the power of God’s mercy and to the capacity of the Holy Spirit to transform a person utterly in a brief span of time. Eudokia was a Samaritan by origin — that is, from a people with complex religious and ethnic relationships with the Jews — and in her youth she lived far from God, passing through grave wanderings.
Eudokia was a woman of outstanding beauty, but she used that beauty in a manner not pleasing to God. According to tradition, she led a dissolute life and became both notorious and wealthy through vice. Yet human freedom and divine mercy are inexhaustible — and for Eudokia the hour of conversion struck. A monk named Germanus happened to lodge near her home for the night. Unable to sleep, he followed his habit and read the Holy Scriptures aloud — the Gospel and writings about the resurrection of the dead and the Last Judgment. Eudokia heard Germanus’s words through the wall, and they penetrated her heart. She spent the entire night in reflection and tears.
In the morning she sought out the monk and asked him to explain everything she had heard. Germanus answered each of her questions with patience. Eudokia was deeply shaken, and the inner upheaval she experienced was so powerful that she resolved to change her life at once. She gave all her possessions to the Church and to the poor, and then entered a nearby women’s monastery, where she received the monastic tonsure. Her penitential zeal and fervent prayer quickly elevated her to a high spiritual life. The monastic sisters, and then the surrounding people, venerated her as a saint already in her lifetime — miraculous healings accompanied her.
Her holiness did not go unnoticed. The governor of the province, Diogenes, a pagan, attempted to force her to renounce Christianity. When Eudokia refused to worship him and rejected the idols, he was temporarily struck blind by the power of God; but Eudokia prayed for him and he was healed and then converted. Yet her martyrdom was not avoided. In the time of Emperor Trajan, new persecutors came to the monastery. Eudokia was led away, questioned, and finally beheaded, surrendering her soul to Christ on March 1, around the year 107. She was, according to tradition, one hundred and fifteen years of age, the last decades of which she had spent in prayer and repentance.
Tropar (Tone 3)
Having passed from a sinful life into repentance, thou wast immolated as a devout lamb, O Venerable Eudokia. Armed with the Cross and inflamed with zeal against pagan falsehood, thou wast crowned with a martyr’s wreath and didst please Christ. Beseech Him to save our souls.
Kontakion (Tone 3)
Through repentance thou didst come to thy senses, O holy Eudokia, and didst step from the darkness of sin into the light of Christ; pleasing God through monastic life and prayer, thou didst end thy course as a martyr, joining the ranks of those who suffered for Christ. Cease not to intercede for us.