Page:A Dictionary of Saintly Women Volume 1.djvu/426

412 ST. IRENE of Chrysobalant at Constantinople. She was eminent in sanctity, wronght miracles, and had the gift of prophecy. Pinios, AA,SS.f gives her life from an anonymous Greek writer, with a Latin translation, but points to some dis- crepancies in the story, which throw donbt on its truth. St. Irene is, how- ever, worshipped in the Greek Church. She was a native of Cappadocia. St. Irene (14), Anna (14). St. Irene (15), the second of three sainted empresses of the same name, all honoured Aug. 13. Daughter of Andronic Ducas. Granddaughter of the Csesar John Ducas, who, although a monk, was one of the most powerful persons in Constantinople. Her mother was a daughter of the King of Bulgaria. Irene was bom about 1067, and married 1077, as hjs second wife, Alexis Comnenus, emperor 1081-1118. He began his reign by a public penance of forty days for all the misery and evil brought on Constantinople and its in- habitants by the soldiery through whom he had taken the city and the crown ; and ho showed great zeal for the con- version of the heathen. His mother, Anna Dalassena, was a good and capable woman and a great help to him, both in worldly and spiritual matters. Irene's peace, if not her life, was threatened by the ambition of the dowager empress, Mary, who considered herself the widow of the last two emperors, Michael III. (Parapinace) and Nice- phorus III. (Botaniatos), although they were both still alive ; she had only married their crown, and to remain em- press she would have married Alexis. She was still beautiful and she still lived in the palace ; but the Caesar, John Ducas, who had often befriended her, succeeded in prevailing on her to leave the palace voluntarily. The eldest child of Alexis and Irene was Anna Comnena, famous for her history of this reign and of the visit of the Crusaders of Western Europe to Con- stantinople. Her tomb is still shown in the Church of St. Sophia, From Theo- dora, the youngest daughter of Alexis and Irene, descended the family of Angolus, who reigned at Constantinople after the Comneni. Alexis was suc- ceeded, in 1118, by his son John, who married the Hungarian princess, Pyiiska, the third sainted Empress Irene. The only stain upon the memory of Irene, the wife of Alexis, is her hatred to her son John and her efforts to deprive him of the succession, in &vonr of her son-in-law Nicephorus Bryennius, the husband of Anna. Having often vainly tried to influence her husband in aooord- anoe with her own wishes on this subject, Irene worried him in his last moments by begging him to leave the crown to Bryennius. He answered, ^ Leave me witii God. I am seeking His pardon for my crimes ; worldly affairs are nothing to me now." The empress, in despair, exclaimed, '^ You die as yon have lived, always full of subterfuge." After the death of Alexis, on the failure of the plot to place Bryennius and Anna on the throne, John generously forgave his sister, and Irene expressed great affection for her son and indignation against all his enemies. She retired from court and took the veil, and with it the name of Xene, in a monastery she had founded. The rule she drew up for the nuns is still extant. The historians of the Crusades give a very unfavourable picture of the character of Alexis. His daughter Anna credits him with every virtue. Lebeau, Bds Empire, bk. Ixxxiv. Stad- ler, Heiligen LexiKon, Cousin, Hisiaire de CoMtantinoplcy " Nicetas." Sir Walter Scott's novel. Count Robert of Parts, introduces the reader to the court of Alexis at the time of the passage through Constantinople of Bohemond, Tancred, and the famous heroes of the Crusade, with the incongruities and misunderstandings between the two sets of Christians. AH modern writers on this reign draw largely upon Anna Comnena. St. Irene (16) of Hungary, Aug. 7, 9, 13, -f 1124. The third sainted em- press of the name, called in her own country Pyriska, which the Greeks, according to their custom, changed on receiving her into their Church and nation. She was the daughter of St. Ladislaus or Lasto I., king of Hungary,