Irene of Thessalonica

Irene is honored as one of the great women martyrs of the early Church, and her veneration spread widely throughout the Christian East from ancient times. According to her traditional life, she was the daughter of a pagan ruler and was named Penelope at birth; instructed in the Christian faith in her youth, she was baptized with the name Irene, meaning 'peace,' and destroyed her father's idols. For her confession of Christ she endured a long series of tortures under successive persecutors, from which she was repeatedly preserved unharmed, and her steadfastness is said to have brought many pagans to belief in Christ. Churches were dedicated to her at Constantinople, and she is commemorated as a Great Martyr on May 5. She is invoked as a patroness of peace and a protector of those who suffer for the faith.