Saint Paraskeuē (Petka) of the BalkansThe fourteenth of October, in addition to being the date when we remember King Harold Godwineson of England, is the feast day of Saint Paraskeuē the Younger, one of the greatest holy Church Mothers of the Balkans, venerated throughout southeastern Europe. The centre of her cultus is in Iași, from which it spread into Russia. An incredibly pious young nun who lived her short earthly life in the eleventh century, Saint Paraskeuē has been kept near and dear especially to the hearts of Bulgarians, Serbs and Romanians for the ten centuries since.
Saint Paraskeuē [Gk. Παρασκευὴ, Bg., Srb. and Rus. Параскева, Ro. Parascheva] who is also known as Saint Friday [Bg., Srb. and Rus. Петка, Ro. Vineri – the name Παρασκευὴ in Greek actually means ‘Friday’], was born in the seaside town of Epibates (modern-day Selimpaşa in Turkey) to a wealthy landowning Greek family. Her father’s name was Nikētas; though her mother’s name is unknown to us on earth, it was owing to her wholesome influence over the young Paraskeuē that she learned to love Christ and His Church, and to follow His precepts and commandments. She also had a brother, Saint Euthymios ‘the Myrrh-Gushing’, who would go on to become a bishop in Madytos.
Young Paraskeuē went to Church and performed her prayers, and also listened very carefully to the Liturgy, to the prayers of the Church, to the homilies. At the age of ten she heard the tale in the Gospel of the rich young man, whom Christ told to go and sell all he had, and give to the poor. Once she heard the tale, Paraskeuē told her mother seriously, ‘He is speaking for me’. As soon as she left the Church, she saw a poor beggar girl in the street, ran to her, took off her own clothes and gave them to the girl, putting on her shabby beggar’s robe in her place. She did this several other times, as well as giving her food to the other children in her parish who did not have enough.
An example of her generosity, even as a little girl, was that one day she went out walking with her servant, and they came across a girl who was clothed in tatters. Saint Paraskeuē had no money on her, and so she took off the golden cross that she wore. Her servant upbraided her, saying that what she was doing was wrong, but Paraskeuē answered her: ‘The Cross teaches us mercy. How can it be wrong for me to use my cross to help this poor girl, who does not deserve such a hard life, in a society ruled by Christ?’ And just like that, she gave her cross to the girl over her servant’s objections. The girl thanked Paraskeuē with tears of gratitude. Paraskeuē thus not only showed a personal generosity, but also a preference for the rule of Heaven with its many mansions, over the unjust rule of earth which can find no room for the unfortunate.
When she grew old enough, her parents began to take thought to having her married. And, since her considerable natural beauty was fully eclipsed by her virtue and beauty of spirit, she was much sought-after, and many rich young men offered for her. She refused them all. Her parents objected, saying that she ought to be cared for, looked after and protected even after they died. But Paraskeuē answered them that Jesus cared for her, looked after her and protected her; and that they ought not to think of what would happen after their own deaths, because ‘God only knows the number of our days’. When their father died, their mother took Euthymios to a monastery in Constantinople where he learned to follow the ascetic life. But Paraskeuē remained with her mother for a time.
She was not content to stay at home, however, and she ran off without telling anyone. Her mother hunted for her high and low. But Paraskeuē undertook a barefoot pilgrimage, divested entirely of her fine clothes (which she had given to the poor), that took her to visit the holy places in Constantinople; to Chalcedon, where the Fourth Œcumenical Council was held, and where she visited the relics of Saint Euphēmia the All-Praised; and then to the Pontian Hērakleia, where she lived for five years at a church dedicated to the Most Holy Theotokos. She spent her time there in prayer and fasting and vigil, and when she slept it was on a mat laid out on the ground.
She very much desired, however, to continue her pilgrimage, and she begged Christ and His Mother in tears to allow her one day to see the Holy Places in which they had lived and reposed, which have been so important to many generations of Christians before her. Her wish was granted. A group of pilgrims came through the Pontian Hērakleia on their journey south, and they were agreeable to the idea of taking young Paraskeuē with them. They arrived in Jerusalem, and she went at once to Bethlehem, to Gethsemane, to the Holy Sepulchre. When she had prayed and meditated upon these places, she crossed the Jordan River and found a community of nuns living in the desert. She lived in the Jordanian desert until she was twenty-five years of age, fighting off the temptations of the Devil and doing war against the passions. She drank only water, and ate only what plants and herbs the desert provided. She slept on a mat under the open air and dressed only in a single tattered robe. One day as she prayed with her arms stretched towards heaven, an angel appeared to her in the form of a young man, and told her to return to her home country – for soon she would go to the Æternal Bridegroom, whom she loved more than even her mother.
She crossed the Jordan again, and returned to Constantinople. This time she visited not only the Hagia Sophia, but also the Church to the Holy Theotokos at Blachernæ. Here she stayed, and asked the Holy Virgin’s guidance and protection, just as she had protected Byzantium from the heathen. This was Saint Paraskeuē’s prayer:
My Holy Lady, all my hopes are directed towards you. Don’t reject your humble servant, accept me, the sinner. I’ve kept loving your Son and my God since childhood. You know the weakness of human nature. You are the protector of my life. You helped me in the desert and now, when I’m back in the world, I beg you to help me again. Stay beside me; give me advice and guide me until the end of my life.Saint Paraskeuē did indeed receive the protection of the Holy Mother of God. She grew frail, and set sail from Constantinople to return home, but a storm blew up at sea. She lifted her voice in prayer to God, and although the ship was wrecked, her life was spared. She came ashore at a place called Kallikrateia, which is now Büyükçekmece on the Turkish side of Thrace, in the western suburbs of the City. She thanked God and the Blessed Virgin for her deliverance, and she made her abode at the Church of the Holy Apostles. Here she lived for two years in obscurity and solitary prayer, until she was twenty-seven years old. She reposed in the Lord here, and her body was claimed by the sea. Years passed, and the people of Kallikrateia forgot the strange young woman who had tended the verge in the Church.
But God did not forget her. One day not that long afterward, the body of a sailor was found by the shore. He stank badly, and his stench disturbed some monks who were living nearby. The monks gave a direction to the villagers of Kallikrateia to bury the body along the shore. The villagers started to dig, and they found the incorrupt remains of a young woman whose body had washed ashore in a like manner. The villagers, ignorant of what they had found, simply piled the two bodies together in the same grave, covered it up and went home.
However, a man from the village named Geōrgios, who was known for his long devotions, took a nap shortly after vigil. Saint Paraskeuē appeared to him, clad in a raiment of dazzling white. She was seated on a throne such that Geōrgios thought he was beholding a great empress, and she was accompanied by a throng of soldiers whose armour was likewise dazzling. Geōrgios fell upon his face in terror, but one of the soldiers lifted him up, saying: ‘Why have you not cared for the body of Paraskeuē? She is adored in Heaven: let her also be adored upon earth.’ The woman on the throne then related to Geōrgios her name, her birthplace and the details of her life such that she would be correctly remembered. As it turned out, the exact vision came to an observant woman of the village named Euthymia. Geōrgios and Euthymia went out the next day and told the villagers of Kallikrateia what they had heard.
Paraskeuē’s incorrupt relics were dug up and placed in a proper coffin, and translated into the Church of the Holy Apostles. The translation was accompanied by many manifestations of divine grace, many wonders as well as a sweet fragrance that permeated the air as she was borne within. In the years that followed, by the power of her prayers to Christ, the relics of Saint Paraskeuē cured many who were ill, who were crippled, or who were afflicted by devils. The Church of the Holy Apostles in Kallikrateia became a popular destination for pilgrims as well as sick and injured people – who sought, and found, respite for their ailments by Saint Paraskeuē’s powerful prayers.
Saint Paraskeuē is a fascinating saint because she truly does attest to the transnational character of Byzantine spirituality, even long after the fall of Constantinople. This is attested both in her life, having visited so many different places within the Empire itself, and in the tale of her relics after her earthly repose. Her Life was first committed to writing by a certain Deacon Basilikos in the middle of the twelfth century, on the orders of Œcumenical Patriarch Nikolaos IV Mouzalōn of Constantinople. After her relics were moved to Great Tărnovo in the Bulgarian Empire around the year 1200, they continued to work wonders and spread faith among the Bulgarian people – who loved her and considered their ‘Petka’ as one of their own. In the year 1385, Saint Evtimii of Tărnovo, Patriarch of Bulgaria, committed to writing another Life to honour Saint Paraskeuē.
When the Turks attacked Bulgaria in 1393, Saint Paraskeuē’s relics were translated to Vidin for safekeeping, but they fell into the hands of the Ottomans anyway after Bulgaria was conquered, following the battle of Nikopol in 1396. The relics were ransomed from the Ottoman Sultan Bayezid by the queen of Serbia, Saint Milica Hrebeljanović – and for a time, Saint Paraskeuē was kept in reverence by the Serbs in Belgrade, where she stayed from 1398 to 1521. During this time she continued to work wonders for the Serbs, and she became a patron of the Serbian people. When Serbia was conquered by the Ottomans that year, the Church in Constantinople was able to procure the relics and bring them into the city; in 1605 the Metropolitan of Myra in Asia Minor wrote another Life of Saint Paraskeuē in Greek. As thanks to him for repeatedly defraying the Church’s substantial debt to the Ottoman Sultans, as well as for contributing to the upkeep of the Holy Places in Jerusalem, the Œcumenical Patriarch gifted Saint Paraskeuē’s relics to the great Moldavian Orthodox voivode, Vasile ‘the Wolf’, around the year 1640. Shortly after this, in 1643, Metropolitan Varlaam of Moldavia wrote yet another Life of Saint Paraskeuē, who became the patroness of Moldavia and its people. Saint Paraskeuē’s relics remain at rest in Iași, at the Metropolitan Cathedral… though her cultus continued to spread even into the Russian Empire, which exercised sovereignty over Iași for some time.
In this way, Saint Paraskeuē became a beloved local saint in five local Orthodox Churches: the Church in Greece, the Church in Bulgaria, the Church in Serbia, the Church in Romania and the Church in Russia – particularly the Metropolis of Chișinău and All Moldova. As a girl, she knew no earthly home or homeland, being perpetually on pilgrimage. Because of her love of the poor, she is the patron of the Saint Paraskeva Orthodox Charity, which works with poor children and orphans in Romania. The society she swore homage to, was the society where all the homeless are housed, all the naked clothed and all the hungry fed: the Kingdom of Heaven. She swore fealty to only one Lord, Jesus Christ. But she did not turn her face away from her righteous rulers like Saint Milica and Vasile ‘the Wolf’. Instead she bestowed her blessings about her no matter where she was. Her ‘hereness’ was the ‘hereness’ of the Mother of God she venerated so much. Let us take from the example of Saint Paraskeuē these lessons: we are not to swear any final fealty to any earthly prince, only to Christ. But neither are we to abandon the cause of those who are poor and hungry, those who suffer from the torments and ravages of wars, famines, fires, floods and earthquakes. Thus we must always take the side of the least of these, the side of those who have nothing: just as Saint Paraskeuē always did. Holy Mother Paraskeuē, friend of the poor, everlasting pilgrim and seeker after Christ, pray unto Him who loves mankind that our souls may be saved!
Apolytikion to Saint Paraskeuē the Younger, Tone 4:
You are worthy of praise, Paraskeuē.
You loved the ascetic and hesychast life.
You ran with longing to your Bridegroom, Christ.
You accepted His good yoke in your tender years,
Marking yourself with the sign of the Cross.
You fought against impure thoughts;
Through fasting, prayer and the shedding of tears
You quenched the burning coal of the passions.
Now in the heavenly bridal chamber of Christ,
As you stand together with the wise virgins
Intercede for us who honour your precious memory.
Iași Metropolitan Cathedral, Romania
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