Nun Irene Myrtidiotissa

 Born in 1939, St. Irene became a living sacrifice for her father - offering herself for her terminally ill father.  Her father became ill with Hodgkins disease in 1953.  St. Irene secretly prayed she would receive her father’s illness.  Shortly after this prayer, she began to lose her own health and it took a year before she was also diagnosed with Hodgkins’ disease.

 St. Irene told her sister, “God gave me father’s illness.  I asked for it from the depth of my heart.  I asked so his pains would be mitigated and because he is needed more for the family.  During Irene’s years of suffering, her father’s pains and radiations ceased.  She often said, “Justly, do I suffer for my sins.”

 She was known for her seriousness of character, straightforwardness and integrity.  She received the monastic tonsure and eventually founded a convent dedicated to the Annunciation of the Mother of God.  St. Irene became well for a month after her tonsure, blood tests confirming that the illness was gone.  Two weeks later, the pains in her body returned, indicating that the illness had come back into her life.  Several years after her death, they exhumed her body and found it to be incorrupt and whole.  In addition, a sweet fragrance emitted from the grave, even though no embalming of the body took place at the time of her death.