Origins and the Imperial Summons
Irene was born in the ninth century to a wealthy aristocratic family in Cappadocia. Her sister married Vardas (Bardas), brother of the Empress Theodora, the ruler who restored the veneration of icons and the Orthodox faith after the iconoclast period.
When Theodora sought a bride for her son, the Emperor Michael, on his twelfth birthday, imperial messengers selected Irene for her beauty, virtue, and refinement. While traveling to Constantinople, the company passed Mount Olympus, where Irene sought a blessing from the hermit Joannicius (Ioannikos), known for prophetic foresight. He told her that the convent of Chrysovalantou had need of her in its community.
Upon her arrival in the capital, Irene found that the Emperor Michael was already married. According to one account he had wed only days before she reached the city. Freed from the prospect of marriage, she declined other proposals and resolved to pursue the monastic life.
Monastic Life at Chrysovalantou
Irene freed her slaves, distributed her inherited wealth and dowry to the poor, clothed herself in sackcloth, and entered the Monastery of Chrysovalantou. There she performed humble and despised tasks without complaint.
She spent her nights in prolonged prayer with raised hands, at times continuing without movement for whole days, and devoted herself to the study of the Lives of the Saints. For three years her diet was bread and water, with only occasional herbs or vegetables.
When the former abbess neared death, she charged the community to accept no one but Irene as her successor. The sisterhood consulted the Patriarch Methodios the Confessor, who, without prior knowledge of these instructions, independently asked whether a humble nun named Irene was among them. On confirming this, he affirmed that she was the choice pleasing in the sight of God, ordained her deaconess, clothed her as abbess, and gave her administrative guidance.
The Gift of Foresight
The sources relate that Irene asked for the gift of foresight in order to guide her community more surely. A guardian angel is said to have appeared to her, declaring that the Lord had sent him so that more might be saved through her guidance, and thereafter she was credited with discerning the hidden difficulties of her nuns and of all who sought her counsel.
Her clairvoyance is presented in the sources as a charism directed wholly toward the spiritual care of those under her direction.
Miracles & Traditions
Historically Documented:
The accounts of Saint Irene's life are preserved chiefly in the synaxaria and traditional vitae; the specific wonders attributed to her are recorded as part of this hagiographic tradition rather than from independent documentary record.
Traditional Accounts:
By tradition, during the night vigils kept in the monastery courtyard a nun witnessed Irene raised about a metre from the ground in prayer while two cypress trees bent down to the earth before her; after she blessed the trees they returned upright, and handkerchiefs are said afterward to have appeared at their tops.
The synaxarion relates that a sailor brought her three apples delivered by a very old man who came walking upon the waves and identified himself as John in Paradise, understood to be Saint John the Theologian. Irene fasted a week in thanksgiving, then ate small pieces of the first apple daily without other food for forty days, and was said to exude the scent of myrrh. On Holy Thursday the second apple was divided among the sisterhood, who felt their souls fed as they ate; the third apple she reserved.
Tradition further records exorcisms attributed to her: a possessed novice, said to have been enchanted by a magician hired by her former betrothed, was freed after a week of fasting and prayer, a vision of the Mother of God, and the burning of the magician's idols following the Divine Liturgy at the Vlachernae convent; and a demonically afflicted young vineyard worker named Nicholas was cured when Irene commanded the spirit to be still and prostrated herself in prayer.
She is also said to have foretold the death of Prince Vardas and the Emperor Michael, both of whom died as she had predicted, and to have appeared in a dream to the Emperor to secure the release of an unjustly condemned nobleman who was a relative of hers. When the Emperor afterward sent an artist to paint her portrait, the company was said to be overwhelmed by a great light; the Emperor was momentarily blinded but recovered his sight after reciting Psalm 50.
Repose
The sources relate that Irene was forewarned by an angel to prepare in the week following the feast of Saint Panteleimon. She passed that week in fasting and meditation, eating only small pieces of the last remaining apple, and it is said that all enmity disappeared from the monastery, which was filled with the fragrance of the apple.
Addressing her community, she nominated Sister Mary as her successor, then raised her hands and eyes to heaven in prayer, smiled at what the account describes as the sight of the angels who greeted her, and reposed with a radiant face. She is recorded as having been over one hundred years old, with her face appearing youthful at her death. An unexplained fragrance is said to have filled the monastery at her funeral and to have continued at her grave for years afterward.
Veneration & Legacy
Saint Irene is commemorated on July 28. Post-mortem miracles attributed to her are traditionally associated especially with mothers unable to conceive, and parents who attribute a birth to her intercession have named children Chrysovalanti or Chrysovalantou after her.
In 1930 a convent dedicated to her memory was built at Attica, Greece, described as a fine example of Byzantine architecture; tradition holds that many witnessed the saint herself digging the foundations of the structure.
On her feast day it is customary in some parishes to bless apples, in commemoration of the miracle of the three apples said to have been sent to her by Saint John the Theologian.
