Domnina the Younger of Syria
Our Venerable Mother Domnina the Younger of Syria
Venerable · b. late 4th century, Cyrrhus in Syria — d. c. 450–460
Commemorated 1 March — Repose; kept with Marana and Cyra on Feb 28 in the Greek books
Domnina the Younger (†c. 450–460) was a Syrian ascetic of the region of Cyrrhus, one of the enclosed holy women whose lives Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, set down from his own knowledge in his Religious History. Born of pious and well-to-do parents, she forsook the world for a life of extreme austerity, dwelling in a little hut of reeds built in the garden of her mother's house, clothed in haircloth, eating only lentils moistened with water, and going out only to the village church for the morning and evening services. Above all she was known for her ceaseless weeping — her veil and her cheeks perpetually wet with the tears of compunction — and for a boundless charity, giving away to the poor and to passing strangers all that her mother's estate produced. She reposed in peace in the mid-fifth century, and the Church honours her among the venerable ascetics of Syria, of particular note in the Antiochian tradition to which she belongs.
Cyrrhus and the enclosed women of Syria
Domnina belongs to the golden age of Syrian monasticism, the fourth and fifth centuries, when the countryside around Cyrrhus and Beroea (Aleppo) was filled with hermits, stylites, and enclosed ascetics whose austerities amazed the Christian world. Almost all that is known of her comes from a single, precious, first-hand source: the thirtieth and last chapter of the Philotheos Historia (Religious History, or History of the Monks of Syria) of Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus (†c. 466), who closes his gallery of the holy men and women of his diocese with three of the enclosed women — Marana and Cyra, and Domnina — whom he had known and visited himself. Theodoret's eyewitness account is the ground of everything the calendars remember of her. The Antiochian and Maronite tradition further associates her, like the ascetics of that region, with the school of Saint Maron (†c. 410), the hermit-father whose disciples peopled the hills of Cyrrhus; she is honoured as one who drew from his way of life.
Her manner of life
Domnina was born to devout and prosperous parents in the territory of Cyrrhus. Rather than leave her mother's house for a distant monastery, she made her ascetic enclosure at home: in the garden beside her mother's dwelling she built for herself a small hut of reeds (a cabin of woven cane or straw), and there she lived out her struggle. She wore a tunic of haircloth, covered her head and face with a veil, and kept her body always bowed. Her food was lentils soaked in water, taken in the barest measure to keep her alive; she touched neither bread, nor oil, nor anything that gratified the flesh.
Twice a day, at dawn and at dusk, she went out to the village church to join the community's prayer — arriving, Theodoret says, before the others and leaving after them — and for the rest she remained at her weeping and her prayer. For weeping was her especial gift: her eyes never ceased to shed tears, so that her veil and the ground beneath her were always wet, and Theodoret, who had spoken with her, marvelled that a body so wasted could yield so ceaseless a stream. Yet her sorrow was without gloom; it was the joyful mourning of the penitent, and her speech to those who came to her was gentle, humble, and full of the fear of God.
Her charity
To this austerity Domnina joined an extraordinary charity. Her mother's estate — its harvests, its produce, all that it yielded — she gave away to the poor and to the strangers and travellers who passed by, keeping for herself only the handful of lentils that sustained her. Theodoret records that she built, from the means at her disposal, houses of prayer and shelter and gave freely to the needy, so that the wealth of a comfortable household was poured out through the hands of a woman who possessed nothing. In her the two wings of the monastic life — the severity toward self and the mercy toward others — were joined; and having so lived, she reposed in peace about the middle of the fifth century.
Feast and commemoration
Domnina is kept on March 1 (church date; New Calendar civil March 1; Old Calendar civil March 14) in the Slavic and Antiochian usage and by the OCA, which styles her "Domnina the Younger of Syria." The Greek Menaion commemorates her on February 28, joined to Marana and Cyra, her companions in Theodoret's book and in the ascetic life. Her feast falls within Great Lent, and her office — where any proper is sung — is kept with the Triodion of the day. Her witness is of particular Antiochian and Syriac note, for she belongs, like Marana and Cyra, to the monasticism of the Patriarchate of Antioch and is known through its greatest historian, Theodoret of Cyrrhus.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 8
In thee, O mother, the divine image was preserved unto perfection; for taking up the cross, thou didst follow after Christ, and by thy deeds thou didst teach the despising of the flesh, which passeth away, and the care of the soul, a thing immortal. Wherefore, O venerable Domnina, thy spirit rejoiceth with the angels.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Domnina is depicted, like the other enclosed women of Syria, as an ascetic mother — veiled and clothed in the dark monastic habit, gaunt from her fasting, her face marked by the tears for which she was known — and may be shown with a cross or a scroll, or standing at the low door of her reed hut. No storable pre-modern icon proper to her has yet been identified; a suitable public-domain image is wanting.
Disputed questions
- Two Domninas of Syria — not to be confused. The calendars know an earlier Domnina and her Daughters (Berenice and Prosdoce), martyrs of Antioch under Diocletian (†c. 302–306, kept October 4), whose full liturgical style is likewise "Domnina of Syria." She is a martyr of the great persecution, three centuries before; the Domnina of this day is a fifth-century ascetic and confessor of the desert, who died in peace. The epithet "the Younger," used by the calendars, distinguishes the ascetic from the elder martyr. Distinct again are the martyr Domnina of Anazarbus in Cilicia (†286, kept October 12) and the venerable Domnica of Constantinople (†c. 474, kept January 8), whose name is often given as "Domnina."
- The companion of Marana and Cyra. Because Theodoret treats Domnina in the chapter immediately following his account of Marana and Cyra, and because all three were enclosed women of the same region and age, the Greek books commemorate Domnina together with Marana and Cyra on February 28, while the Slavic and OCA calendars keep her on March 1 as her own day. The two placements honour the one saint; this entry ranks the March 1 feast as primary and notes the February 28 commemoration.