SAINT PULCHERIA

Saint Pulcheria was a great woman theologian on the imperial throne. She became a true ruler equal to the apostles in the matter of adequately confessing dogmatic truths. A model of ascetic behavior for a supreme ruler and a tireless inspirer of the canonization of ancient saints, Pulcheria is truly inimitable. Her name translates from Latin as “beautiful.”

1 On September 23, the Church celebrates the memory of the Byzantine Empress Pulcheria. She was born in Constantinople on January 19, 399, and died there, presumably in February or July 453. It should be noted that thirteen days must be added to convert ancient church dates to the modern Orthodox Julian calendar. When Saint Pulcheria departed to the Lord her body was laid to rest in the Basilica of the Holy Apostles where, by that time, the relics of Saints Gregory the Theologian, John Chrysostom, and Patriarch Flavian of Constantinople already rested. The successor of her husband, Emperor Marcian, Leo I the Great (457–474), ordered her burial place to be specially decorated and even named two cities in her honor.

2 At that time, the Orthodox Churches of Rome and Constantinople were under pressure from opponents of the Council of Chalcedon (451). Therefore, Pulcheria’s name, especially in the western part of the Empire, where relatively little was known about what was happening in the East, soon became a symbol of the defense of Orthodoxy in the face of the “Monophysite error” that was then sweeping Egypt and Syria. In his letters, Pope Gregory the Great (590-604) called Pulcheria “the second Equal-to-the-Apostles Helen,” and in the acts of the Council of Constantinople of 869-870, one of the Orthodox empresses, Eudoxia, was referred to as “the new Pulcheria.” There are indications that in the liturgical practice of the Church of Constantinople in subsequent centuries, Pulcheria’s memory was celebrated multiple times throughout the year.

3 In modern times, in both ecclesiastical and secular life across Europe, the image of Saint Pulcheria was held up as a model of fortitude and virtue, even held up as an example to future crowned heads. She featured prominently in the tragedy of the same name by the French poet Pierre Corneille (1606–1684) and even evoked the sympathy of Voltaire (1694–1778). Pope Benedict XIV (1675–1758) preached about the chaste marriage of Pulcheria and Marcian, and furthermore, sought to spread the memory of the saint through popular piety and liturgical veneration.

4 Saint Pulcheria is one of the very few rulers of the Roman and Byzantine Empires to be canonized. Moreover, her services to the Church in defending dogmatic truth are so great that, among all the faithful queens and princesses, she is perhaps unrivaled. Thus, to a significant degree, we owe to Saint Pulcheria the successful outcome of the Third and Fourth Ecumenical Councils, which condemned dogmatic errors and heretical extremes in the teaching about Christ, which went down in history as Nestorianism and Eutychianism, or Monophysitism. Unfortunately, few Orthodox Christians remember Saint Pulcheria today. On her feast day, it is important to carefully reread her life to ask for her intercession before God in all the difficulties and turbulent times experienced by the Local Churches of Universal Orthodoxy.

5 The Orthodox Church considered Saint Pulcheria equal to the Church Fathers or even to the Apostles. This was reflected in the establishment of her feast day. Contrary to the generally accepted tradition of honoring a saint on the anniversary of her death, the memory of Saint Pulcheria is celebrated after the Holy Fathers of the Third Ecumenical Council in Ephesus. At this Council, Mary was solemnly given the title “Theotokos,” and the term “Theotokos” was transformed from poetic and doxological to dogmatic. Pulcheria’s contribution to these events was enormous. The feast day for the Council Fathers was again not set arbitrarily, but on the day after the Nativity of Mary. Thus, on September 21, 22 and 23, an astonishing sequence emerges – Nativity of Mary, the Council Fathers and Empress Pulcheria – a great three-day harvest festival, similar to the three great days of Holy Week, the Triduum of the first days of Easter, the dogmatic number of the Trinity and the biblical password for the Resurrection.