Zenaida and Philonilla

The Holy Martyrs Zenais and Philonilla of Tarsus, Sisters, Kinswomen of the Apostle Paul

Martyr · Unmercenary · Virgin

Zenaida (Zenais) and Philonilla (first century) were sisters of Tarsus in Cilicia, kinswomen of the Apostle Paul and among the earliest women physicians the Church remembers. Leaving home and property, they settled in a cave near Demetrias and practised medicine without payment, healing bodies freely and bringing souls to Christ — the pattern the Church would later name "unmercenary." The traditions of their end diverge: the Russian and OCA account has pagans stone them to death in their cave by night, while the Greek synaxarion's verse says the two "friends of peace fell asleep in peace." They are commemorated together on October 11.

The sisters belonged to Tarsus, the city of the Apostle Paul, and the received tradition makes them his kinswomen — women of the apostolic generation formed at the edge of his own family circle. Both were devout and both, unusually for their time, were educated: sharing a love of learning, they acquired by whatever means were open to them the art of medicine.

Renouncing home and possessions, they withdrew to a cave near the city of Demetrias (the sources' "Demetriada"; usually located in Thessaly), living in prayer and labour. When the people of the region discovered that two women doctors dwelt there who would treat anyone who came and would take no payment for it, the sick came in numbers; and the sisters healed their diseases while opening to them the faith of Christ, converting many. In them the Church venerates the first women of the long line of holy unmercenary physicians — healers of the type of Cosmas and Damian, before either was born; Zenaida in particular is remembered in the Russian tradition as the first woman physician among the saints, and later Greek piety honours the pair as patrons of women in medicine.

Of their end, the tradition speaks with two voices, recorded below. In the account carried by the Slavic menologies, a mob of pagans came to the cave by night and stoned them, so that they received the crowns of martyrdom in the very place of their healing. They are commemorated together on October 11.

Feast and commemoration

October 11 (church date; Old Calendar civil October 24), in all the Byzantine calendars, alongside the Apostle Philip the Deacon and Theophanes the Branded; a synaxarion commemoration without proper hymns in the received Greek books. The OCA styles them Virgin Martyrs of Tarsus in Cilicia; the Russian calendar lists "martyrs Zenaida and Philonilla (I)"; the Roman Martyrology also keeps the pair on October 11.

Iconography

The sisters are painted as women of the apostolic age in the maphorion, with the martyr's cross, and — as unmercenary healers — sometimes with the physician's box or medicine vessel, the attribute they share with the holy unmercenaries; icons of the pair show them side by side, Zenaida usually the elder. The stored image is the miniature of the Menologion of Basil II (Constantinople, c. 985; Vat. gr. 1613, p. 106): before the dark mouth of their cave one sister sinks to the ground wounded, while the other stands in prayer toward the hand of God appearing from heaven — the miniature painting their stoning and their acceptance in a single frame.

Disputed questions

Martyrdom or peaceful repose. The Russian tradition and the OCA life end the story with the night stoning, and the calendars of that tradition style them martyrs (мцц.); the OCA heads them "Virgin Martyrs." The Greek synaxarion for October 11 also titles them "the holy Martyrs Zenais and Philonilla, the sisters" — yet its distich says the opposite of a violent end: "The two friends of peace, Philonilla and Zenais, fell asleep in peace" (Εἰρηνικῶς ὕπνωσαν εἰρήνης φίλαι). The Greek books thus transmit the title of martyrdom over a verse of peaceful repose — likely the trace of an older tradition in which the sisters died in peace. Both witnesses are recorded here; the martyr's title is kept, as the calendars keep it.
Relation to Paul. The sources say only that they were kinswomen ("relatives") of the Apostle; later retellings that make them nieces, or sisters of a bishop, are embellishments without early support.
Names. Zenais is the older Greek form, Zenaida the received English and Slavonic form; Philonilla appears also as Philonella in some western lists.
Not to be confused with Zenais of Caesarea, "the Wonderworker," a martyr of Caesarea in Palestine born in 284 and commemorated on June 7. The two Zenaides are alike in name and in the reputation for healing and wonders, and are separated by everything else: century (first against fourth), place (Tarsus and Demetrias against Caesarea), companion (a sister against none), and feast day. The Byzantine books keep two distinct notices.