Irene Chrysovalantou

Icon of cypress trees bending toward Irene (with apples and angels)

28 July

Irene Chrysovalantou, deacon, abbess of a community of women at Constantinople, died in 921.

Irene was born about 826 to the prominent Gouber family in Byzantium. The empress planned to marry her to Prince Michael III. According to legend, on the way to the wedding she delayed to listen to the wisdom of a hermit. When she arrived at Constantinople, the prince was already married to someone else. Irene gave her jewelry to the church, entered the monastery of Chrysovalantou, and immediately engaged in vigils and prayer. Soon she was ordained deaconess and became the new abbess.

Increasing her spiritual struggles, with great trust in God to guide the community properly, she developed the gifts of foresight and exorcism. Her prayer through the night continued in the courtyard of the monastery, causing her to levitate and the cypress trees to bend toward her. She was granted three apples from John the Theologian and visions of angels. Icons often portray her with bending trees, apples, and angels. She appeared in a vision to the emperor to release an unjustly convicted man. After her death in 921, she continued to be a wonder worker. Her veneration and miracle working include a miraculous weeping icon of St. Irene, written in 1921 by a monk at Mount Athos. It is now in the Orthodox monastery bearing her name at Astoria, Long Island.