Agape, Chionia and Irene
The Holy Virgin-Martyrs Agape, Chionia and Irene of Thessalonica
Virgin · Martyr · d. 304
Commemorated 16 April — Martyrdom at Thessalonica under Diocletian
Agape, Chionia and Irene were three Christian sisters of Thessalonica martyred in the persecution of Diocletian in 304. Refusing to eat food offered to idols, and found to possess the forbidden Christian Scriptures, they were condemned by the governor Dulcitius: Agape and Chionia were burned alive, and Irene, after being exposed to shame and standing firm, was put to death — by fire, or, in the fuller account, by an arrow. Their authentic Acts survive and are among the most reliable of the early martyr-records; the three are linked in tradition with St Anastasia the Deliverer-from-Bonds, who strengthened and buried them.
The three sisters — Agape ("love"), Chionia ("snow," i.e. purity) and Irene ("peace") — lived at Thessalonica in Macedonia. When the edicts of Diocletian commanded all to sacrifice and to surrender the Christian books, the sisters, with some companions, fled to the mountains for a time; but they were taken and brought before the prefect Dulcitius.
Their surviving Acts, drawn from the court record, preserve the interrogation with rare vividness. Pressed to eat of the meat sacrificed to idols, they refused, declaring they would rather die. Dulcitius, unable to move them, first attempted Irene's shame — ordering that she be sent to a house of harlots and exposed naked; but, the account says, no man dared touch her, and she stood guarded by the grace of God. Agape and Chionia were condemned to be burned alive, and gave up their souls in the fire unharmed in soul, their bodies found afterward untouched by the flames. Irene was questioned again; when the hidden Christian books (parchments and codices) were discovered in her keeping, and she confessed that the sisters had guarded them at the risk of death rather than hand them over, she too was condemned — set upon a height and shot with an arrow, or, by another notice, cast into the fire — and so completed the martyrdom of the three, in the year 304. Their bodies were reverently buried; tradition names St Anastasia the Deliverer-from-Bonds among those who encouraged them before death and cared for their remains.
Feast and commemoration
April 16 (church date; Old Calendar civil April 29). The three virgin-martyrs of Thessalonica are honoured with their companions; their contest is remembered with St Anastasia the Deliverer-from-Bonds (December 22), whose Life recounts their passion.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of virgin-martyrs)
Thy lambs Agape, Chionia and Irene cry out with a loud voice, O Jesus: We love Thee, O our Bridegroom, and in seeking Thee we endure suffering; crucified with Thee and buried in Thy baptism, we suffer for Thy sake that we may reign with Thee; accept us who sacrifice ourselves in love for Thee, and by their prayers, O merciful One, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
The three are painted together as maidens in the maphorion, each holding the cross of witness, often shown with the fire of their martyrdom and with a book in Irene's hand, in memory of the Scriptures they refused to surrender. No pre-1900 icon of them has been identified for this collection.
Disputed questions
- Not to be confused. The Irene of these three sisters is not Irene the Great Martyr, commemorated May 5 — the king's daughter Penelope of the legendary Acts, baptised by Timothy, who endured the serpent-pit and the bronze oxen and reposed near Ephesus. This is the likeliest confusion of the month, because the great-martyr is widely styled "of Thessalonica" (through the Slavonic reading of her homeland as Mygdonia in Macedonia), which is precisely the epithet of these sisters, who really were Thessalonians. The two are distinct: this Irene suffered with her sisters Agape and Chionia at Thessalonica under Diocletian in 304, and her passion survives in genuine court-record Acts; the great-martyr's dossier is a hagiographic romance of another country and another day. Distinct again is the Irene of the company Irenaeus, Irene and Peregrinus, martyrs burned at Thessalonica and commemorated on May 5 with the great-martyr, and the martyr Irene of Sophia and Irene of Egypt (September 18).