Eikon

Hermione of Ephesus

The Holy Virgin Martyr Hermione, Daughter of the Holy Apostle Philip the Deacon

Martyr · Virgin · d. c. 117

Commemorated 4 September — Martyrdom at Ephesus

Hermione (†c. 117) was one of the four virgin daughters of Philip the Deacon — the evangelist of the Seven — who "did prophesy" (Acts 21:9). A prophetess and physician of the apostolic generation, she travelled to Ephesus seeking John the Theologian, arriving only after his repose, healed the sick without charge, and founded a house of care for them. Interrogated by the emperor Trajan, to whom she foretold Hadrian's succession, she was released, but under Hadrian was tortured and finally beheaded at Ephesus, where she was buried. Her converted executioners, Theotimus and Theodoulos, are commemorated with her on September 4.

Origins and apostolic labours

Hermione belonged to the first Christian generation. Her father Philip, one of the seven deacons ordained by the apostles (Acts 6:5), evangelised Samaria and baptised the Ethiopian eunuch; at his house in Caesarea, Luke records, Paul and his companions lodged, "and the same man had four daughters, virgins, which did prophesy" (Acts 21:8–9). Hermione was one of these four, formed in her father's house in the charisms of the apostolic church.

The synaxarion tradition relates that Hermione, with her sister Eutychis, travelled to Ephesus in the desire of seeing John the Theologian, the last of the apostles; they arrived to find that he had already reposed. There they attached themselves to Petronius, a disciple of the apostle Paul, taking his life as their pattern. Hermione had mastered the art of medicine, and at Ephesus she healed the sick who came to her — treating bodies by her skill and souls by the power of Christ, and receiving nothing for it; later she established a hospice (a xenodocheion) where the sick and the stranger were cared for together, one of the earliest such foundations remembered of any Christian woman.

Confession under Trajan

When the emperor Trajan (98–117) passed through Asia on his war against Persia, report of the prophetess reached him, and Hermione was brought before him to be questioned about the outcome. She foretold that he would prevail over the Persians and that his kinsman Hadrian would succeed him. Learning she was a Christian, Trajan first tried gentle persuasion to bring her to sacrifice; failing, he had her beaten about the face for hours. The tradition relates that she was comforted by a vision of the Lord seated as judge in the likeness of Petronius, and endured; and Trajan, persuaded that she would never yield, let her go. She returned to her hospice and her sick.

Martyrdom

Under Hadrian (from 117) she was again denounced and tried. The synaxarion account heaps up the tortures of the martyric genre: beaten without mercy, her feet pierced with nails, cast into a cauldron of boiling pitch, lead, and brimstone, in which she stood unharmed while the fire died — and when the astonished emperor put his hand to the cauldron to test it, he was burned; then thrown into a red-hot brazen vessel, where she stood as on dewy grass. Feigning at last a willingness to sacrifice to "Hercules," she was led exulting to the temple, where at her prayer a thunderclap shattered the idols. Enraged, the emperor ordered her taken outside the city and beheaded.

The two servants charged with the execution, Theotimus and Theodoulos, hurried her and would not let her pray; their hands withered, and they believed in Christ, falling at her feet and begging her prayers that they might be received by God before her. Both died in the Lord before the sword touched her, and are commemorated with her; then Hermione was beheaded and buried at Ephesus, about the year 117.

Veneration and later cultus

An ancient and remarkable independent witness stands behind the Ephesus tradition: Polycrates, bishop of Ephesus at the end of the second century (quoted by Eusebius), appeals to the "great luminaries" buried in Asia — Philip and his virgin daughters at Hierapolis, "and another daughter of his, who lived in the Holy Spirit, who rests at Ephesus." That daughter resting at Ephesus has long been identified with Hermione, making her one of the few saints of the apostolic age whose burial place is attested within living memory of her family. Her commemoration stands on September 4 in the Synaxarion of Constantinople and in all the Byzantine calendars; in Greece she is venerated as a patron of physicians and healers, and the modern town of Ermioni in the Argolid shares her name, though not her history.

Feast and commemoration

September 4 (church date; Old Calendar civil September 17), a universal commemoration of the Byzantine calendars, on the same day as the Hieromartyr Babylas of Antioch and the Prophet Moses. The Greek synaxaria commemorate on the same day Theotimus and Theodoulos, "the executioners who believed," whose conversion belongs to her passion. Her father Philip the Deacon is commemorated October 11.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy lamb Hermione crieth unto Thee with a great voice, O Jesus: Thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking Thee I contend, and am crucified and buried with Thee in Thy baptism; and I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee, and I die for Thee, that I may live in Thee. Receive me then as a spotless sacrifice, slain for Thee with love. By her intercessions, O merciful One, save our souls.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

Hermione is painted as a young woman of the apostolic age in the maphorion of a virgin, bearing the martyr's cross; as a healer she may hold a physician's box or vessel of medicine, an attribute shared with the holy unmercenaries, and she sometimes appears beside her father Philip or among his daughters. No storable pre-modern image of her could be verified for this entry — she does not appear in the surviving September miniatures of the Menologion of Basil II for this day, which depict Babylas — so no image is stored; her icon is listed among those wanted.

Disputed questions

  • Which Philip? The Greek synaxarion for September 4 calls Hermione "one of the daughters of Philip the apostle," while the OCA and most modern calendars name Philip the Deacon (the evangelist of the Seven, Acts 6 and 21, commemorated October 11) — and the confusion is not modern: already in the second century Polycrates and Papias speak of Philip "the apostle" and his prophesying daughters at Hierapolis, where Eusebius himself conflates the two Philips. Acts 21:8–9 ties the four prophesying virgin daughters explicitly to Philip the evangelist and deacon, and this entry follows that identification, recording the synaxarion's wording as part of the ancient ambiguity.
  • Chronology. The tradition has Trajan interrogate her during a Persian campaign (Trajan's Parthian war, 114–117) and Hadrian execute her; Hadrian's accession in August 117 makes a martyrdom "c. 117" coherent, but a woman of Acts 21 (c. 57) would then be very aged, and some accounts therefore make her repose rather than execution the end (the synaxarion verse speaks simply of her departing to heaven, and the tradition of the executioners dying first shows the sources' own unease). The dates are received as traditional, not established.
  • The OCA text of her life places the final condemnation in the mouth of "Trajan" even within the Hadrianic trial — an internal inconsistency of the received account, noted here rather than silently harmonised.

Sources

  1. Acts 21:8–9 (with Acts 6:5; 8) — her father and the four prophesying virgin daughters.
  2. Polycrates of Ephesus, quoted in Eusebius, Ecclesiastical History III.31 and V.24 — the daughter of Philip "who rests at Ephesus"; with Eusebius's own conflation of the two Philips.
  3. Synaxarion of Constantinople and Greek Menaion, September 4 — synaxarion notice and verses (with Theotimus and Theodoulos).
  4. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, September 4 — the full received life (Eutychis, Petronius, the tortures, the executioners).