The miracle of the Holy Great Martyr Euphemia was celebrated, whose holy relic is in the Patriarchal Church.
Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew prayed during the Divine Liturgy on Tuesday, July 11, 2023 on the day of the feast. Metropolitan Ieronymos of Kalavryta and Aigialeia celebrated the Divine Liturgy and also presided over the Great Vespers on the eve of the feast.
Elder Apostolos of Derkoi, Chrysostomos of Myra, Theoliptos of Iconium, Hilarion of Winnipeg, Stefanos of Kallioupolis, Maximos of Sylivria, and Paisios of Xanthoupolis, clergy, monks and nuns, and many believers from Constantinople, Greece and Great Britain attended the service.
After the end of the Divine Liturgy, the Ecumenical Patriarch addressed the congregation, warmly welcoming pilgrims from abroad to the Patriarchal Church and the historic Center of Orthodoxy.
“You came from various regions of Greece, Aitoloakarnania, Arta, Livadia, Eratyra of Kozani and from Great Britain, the Holy Archdiocese of Thyateira. You are in our City with pious clergymen, professors, the President of the Association “Ai Markos Arta”, all of you pious pilgrims came to this holy place. We can see everywhere the signs of our civilization, the imprint of the intelligence and piety of our ancestors. Here one hears the pulse of the living history of the Nation and Orthodoxy. You feel here the eloquent silence of our and your past. None of all this is foreign to you, since you are not strangers here, in the ‘spiritual womb’ of the Nation. We have heard many times from pilgrims that when they are here in Constantinople they do not feel that they ‘came’, but that they ‘returned’, that they came back to where they belong spiritually.
We honor today the holy memory of Saint Euphemia, whose relics are kept in our Patriarchal Church, where we are gathered in the name of our Lord. Twice a year, on July 11, the anniversary of the legendary miracle of Saint Euphemia, and on September 16, the day of the passing of Saint Euphemia due to martyrdom for her faith in Christ. She was persecuted under Diocletian. Her relic is laid in repose for the faithful to pay their respects. As many of you will know, the Fourth Ecumenical Synod of Chalcedon, in the year 451, dogmatized and proclaimed, being against monasticism and Nestorianism, the union of the divine and human natures in the one person of Christ, ‘unconfusedly, unchangeably, indivisibly, and inseparably'”.