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| Greek Orthodox Church dedicated to St Ephermia, Kadikoy, Istanbul. |
St Euphemia
was martyred on 16 September 303, during the reign of Emperor Diacletian. She died in Chalcedon[1],
just across the water from what was then Constantinople.
Euphemia was the daughter of a senator named Philophronos and his wife Theodosia who lived in
Chalcedon. In the year 303 Priscus, the
governor of Chalcedon, made a decree that all those who lived in the city
should take part in sacrifices to the god Ares.
Euphemia was discovered, with forty-nine other Christians hiding in a
house and worshiping God and in defiance of the governor’s decree. They were tortured for a number of days and
then all but Euphemia were sent to the Emperor for trial. Euphemia was apparently the youngest in the
group and she was separated from the group, tortured harshly, including use of
the wheel, in order to break her spirit and cause her to renounce her
faith. She was put into an arena with
lions. Rather than kill her they licked
her wounds. It is said that she was
fatally wounded by a wild bear in the same arena.
In June or
July 384 Egeria, a nun from Galicia states in her record of her journey to
Turkey that she “reached Chalcedon, and I stayed there because it contains the
renowned martyrium of Holy Euphemia, long known to me”[2] So just over eighty years after Euphemia’s
martyrdom the church dedicated to her and containing her remains was a place of
pilgrimage.
A large basilica was built over the
site where she was buried and it was in that church that the Council of
Chalcedon was held in 451 attended by five hundred and twenty bishops. “Pulcheria selected her martyr shrine because
it was large enough to contain so numerous a gathering, but also because she
trusted that this powerful female saint would protect the council and bring it
to a salutary conclusion.”[3]
The Church where the Council of
Chalcedon was held is probably nearer to the now defunct Haydarpaşa Station
rather than on the site of the present Greek Orthodox Church dedicated to St
Euphemia in the market area of Kadıköy. The relics of the martyr Euphemia are in the
Greek Patriarchate, Istanbul.
The Greek Orthodox Church also holds a special celebration on 11
July when they remember the part that the martyr Euphemia played in the
decision making process of the Council of Chalcedon. The two factions -the Monophysites and the
Orthodox believers put their written statements of belief about the nature of
Christ into Euphemia’s coffin. Later
they came to see what had happened to the two statements and found that the
Monophysite statement was at the Martyr’s feet and the Orthodox belief as
embodied in the Nicene Creed was in Euphemia’s hands.
Euphemia is an example of a brave young woman who resisted the
pressure on her to worship a pagan god.
Despite the torture she remained faithful to her Lord. The involvement of the martyr Euphemia in the
Council of Chalcedon is an indication of how the saints were part of the daily
life of Christians and were relied on to be part of the ordinary lives of later
citizens of Chalcedon and to answer their prayers.
[2] Wilkinson, John Egeria’s
Travels (Aris & Phillips, Warminster, UK 2002) p.142. We will look separately at the travels of
this amazing woman.
[3] Holum
K Theodosian Empresses (University of California Press, USA, 1982) p. 213
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