A friend of mine recently brought to my attention this dramatic confirmation of the necessity of sacramental baptism, and God’s providence in supplying it. While we Latins were celebrating the feast of the great Saint Pius V (May 5), the Byzantines were celebrating the Great-martyr Irene of Thessalonica (4th c.). Her feast shows how interested God is in getting His predestined both Faith and Baptism.
In the Great Horologion, published by Holy Transfiguration (Orthodox) Monastery, we read the following (from Orthodox Saints for May, italics mine):
Saint Irene was the daughter of a princelet called Licinius; named Penelope by her parents, through a divine revelation she was brought to faith in Christ and at Baptism was renamed Irene. In her zeal for piety she broke in pieces all the idols of her father, who commanded that she be trampled underfoot by horses. But while she remained unharmed, one of the horses rose up and cast down her father, killing him. By her prayer she raised him to life again, and he believed and was baptized. Afterwards, in many journeyings, Saint Irene suffered torments and punishments for her faith, but was preserved by the power of God, while working dread miracles and converting many thousands of souls. At last she came to Ephesus, where she fell asleep in peace, in the first half of the fourth century. Two days after her death, her gravestone was found lifted off, and her grave empty. At least two churches were dedicated to St Irene in Constantinople, and she is the patroness of the Aegean island of Thera, which is commonly called Santorini, a corruption of “Saint Irene.”
