By Elaine Gounaris Hanna
From The Word, December 1998
Sophia, whose name means wisdom, deliberately named her three daughters Faith, Hope and Love. St. Sophia was a devout Christian who lived during a time of great persecution under the Roman Emperor Hadrian. She had been widowed shortly after the birth of her third daughter. With her three children, she was brought before the magistrate and ordered to renounce Christ and offer incense to the pagan deity Artemis. If she refused, she was told, she would be forced to watch her three young daughters die a horrible death. Imagine the anguish this mother must have gone through! Yet she summoned the courage to remain faithful to Christ and encouraged her daughters, aged twelve, ten, and nine, to endure, saying, “Your heavenly Lover, Jesus Christ, is eternal Health, inexpressible Beauty and Life eternal. When your bodies are slain by torture, He will clothe you in incorruption, and the wounds on your bodies will shine in heaven like the stars.” The three little girls bravely suffered tortures and finally martyrdom. God in His great mercy granted their mother Sophia to fall asleep in Him three days later to be reunited with her precious daughters in His Kingdom.
How many of us could endure to sacrifice our children for the sake of Christ? All of us, I hope, but it would be the most difficult and agonizing decision we would ever have to make.
Our society is constantly calling upon us to renounce Christ in one way or another. Perhaps not in so dramatic a way, but, in a sense, society is also asking us to sacrifice our children. The temptations may be subtle or seemingly insignificant, but, in reality, they are spiritually damaging. In our society today, for example, Sunday is often seen as a day of rest, sporting or school events, or entertainment, not as the day of the Lord. Families who otherwise attend Church disappear for a sports season because their child is on a sports team which practices or plays its games on Sunday mornings. The fervor for Christ is missing, replaced by a stronger allegiance to some other god. We have to teach our daughters, who will be mothers, what our priorities as Orthodox Christians ought to be, so they can, in turn, teach their children.
They can teach something to their children even through the names they give them. Sophia named her children after the three great Christian virtues. This can be a reminder to our daughters to give their children names whose meaning or whose patron saint they would wish for them to emulate.
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Holy Martyr Sophia and her Three Daughters: Faith, Hope and Love
September 17
Troparion, Tone Five
Thou didst blossom in the courts of the Lord as a fruitful olive tree, O holy Martyr Sophia; in thy contest thou didst offer to Christ the sweet fruit of thy womb, Love, Hope and Faith. With them, intercede for us all.
Kontakion Tone One
Faith, Hope and Love, holy branches of noble Sophia, by grace made Greek wisdom foolishness. They have contested and won the Victory and have been crowned by Christ the Master of all.
