Virgin Martyr Helen of Sinope

Commemorated on November 1.

The sack floated to a spot called Gaei where, because of the depth of the water, the sea appears to be black. Here it sank. A few days later a Greek ship anchored near Gaei. The night watchman noticed a light coming from the bottom of the sea. Thinking that there was a treasure of gold, he informed the captain. Divers were sent down to bring up the treasure, but instead of perishable gold they discovered the holy relics of the Virgin Martyr Helen.

When the lawless Turks tortured the Saint they drove two nails into her head, and then they beheaded her. When the sack was opened they found a nail sticking out of her head and the hole that had been made by the second nail. The captain took Saint Helen's relics to Russia, and secretly brought her head to the church of the Theotokos at Sinope. The skull of the New Virgin Martyr Helen has worked many miracles at Sinope, particularly for those afflicted with headaches. At the place where the sack sank in the ocean fresh water came forth like a fountain of holy water (agiasmos). Ever since then, the spot has been known as Agiasmata.

During the exchange of populations between Greece and Turkey in 1924, the president Christos Kapharopoulos took the holy skull of Saint Helen to Thessaloniki. Today the skull, which emits a fragrant odor and works miracles, is preserved in the church of the Holy Great Martyr Marina in Ano Toumba. The relics of Saints Cosmas and Damian of Asia are also in that church, and their memory is celebrated together with that of Saint Helen on November 1.

A Church Service in honor of Saint Helen was composed by the learned monk Gerasimos of the Small Skete of Saint Anne on Mount Athos, the hymnographer of the Great Church (Constantinople). The Saint's skull continues to produce a fragrance, and works miracles up to the present day.