Orthodox Icon of St. Dymphna

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May 15th

Dymphna was born in the early 600s to a beautiful and devout Christian mother and a pagan chieftain in Ireland. She was well educated in the faith and in letters by her mother and their priest, Father Gerebran. Her mother fell ill and died when Dymphna was just 15. Her father was inconsolable. His advisors told him he should take another wife. He sent them out in search of a beautiful, intelligent woman like Dymphna's mother. They looked all over Ireland and Europe and could find none except Dymphna herself. The chieftain proposed this to his daughter and she was horrified. Fr. Gerebran heard of this and advised Dymphna to tell her father that she needed forty days alone to pray and consider this. As soon as she withdrew, Fr. Gerebran, along with the court jester and his wife, spirited Dymphna away to Europe. They found hospitality at Gheel, a village in Belgium, near Antwerp. When her father learned of her flight, he and his men set off after her in rage. He tracked them to Belgium. When he tried to secure a room at the inn at Gheel, the innkeeper told him that he would not accept his money, because it was too hard to exchange. This let him know that Dymphna had been there recently. When he found her, he tried to persuade her to return with him. Fr. Gerebran soundly rebuked him for such an abomination. The chieftain's men seized the godly priest and cut his head off with a sword. Dymphna persistently refused her father's advances. Finally he was so enraged that he took his dagger out of his belt and cut her head off.
He and his men fled the scene. The saints' bodies lay where they fell for some time before the townspeople placed them in a cave near the village and sealed the entrance with dirt. Some time passed and the villagers recalled these godly deaths and decided to give them a proper burial. They opened the cave and found two intricately carved white stone coffins. When they opened St. Dymphna's, lying on her breast was a red tile with the inscription: "Here lies the holy virgin and martyr, Dymphna." She is a patron saint of the mentally ill and family happiness.

This icon is by the hand of Nicholas Papas. This icon is part of the "intercessors" icon at St. Michael Antiochian Orthodox Church, Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

Order #mgp-28