July 7, 2004
St. John the Baptist Russian Orthodox Church
Kontakion in tone 2
You struggled valiantly,
Defending faith in Christ your beloved Savior.
Through the powerful intercession of the Mother of God,
Intercede with Christ that He may destroy false teachings,
Humiliating the pride of the enemy beneath the feet of the Church, O Euphemia,
For you have received and faithfully preserved the rock of faith!
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Passaic, New Jersey
07055
A parish of the
The holy Great Martyr Euphemia suffered martyrdom in the city of Chalcedon in the year 304, during the time of the persecution against Christians by the emperor Diocletian (284-305). One and a half centuries later, at a time when the Christian Church had become victorious within the Roman Empire, God deigned that Euphemia the All-Praised should again be a witness and confessor of the purity of the Orthodox teaching. A Priest, Eutyches, supported by the Patriarch of Alexandria, fathered a heresy that even the collected wisdom of 630 God-bearing fathers at the Fourth Ecumenical Council could not reconcile. They extolled Jesus to have only one nature, divine, and not two. At an impasse, the patriarch put the two opposing volumes of thought into the hands of Euphemia, in her casket. It was then sealed and both sides retired to pray for divine intervention. After three days, the casket was reopened. The book of the monophysites' heresy was under her feet, and the true doctrine was found clutched in her hand.
Great Martyr Euphemia
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