The Holy Great-Martyr Irene was, by the synaxarion's account, born in the city of Magedon in Persia during the fourth century. At birth she was named Penelope, and she was the daughter of Licinius, a pagan ruler of a small kingdom, and his wife Licinia. Tradition relates that her conversion to Christ and the long series of torments she endured and was delivered from led great numbers of pagans to the faith, on account of which she is honored in the Orthodox Church as a great martyr.
Because Penelope was very beautiful, her father shut her away from the age of six in a high tower, together with thirteen young companions, so that she would be kept apart from the Christian faith. He appointed an aged tutor named Apellian to educate her; but Apellian was himself a Christian, and through his lessons the girl learned of Christ the Savior and of the Christian virtues. By tradition she received a vision of a dove bearing an olive branch, an eagle with a wreath of flowers, and a raven carrying a snake, which Apellian interpreted as signs of grace, of victory, and of the sufferings she would undergo.
Refusing the marriage her father had arranged, Penelope was baptized by the priest Timothy, who gave her the name Irene, meaning "peace," and she broke her father's idols to pieces. The accounts of her passion describe a succession of rulers who tried to compel her to sacrifice and who subjected her to torments from which she was repeatedly delivered, so that thousands were converted at each deliverance before she was finally put to death.
