Agia Ypomoni, in name only Eleni Dragasi, and later, as the wife of Manuel II Palaiologos, “Helen in Christ oh The Thea and Empress of the Romans the Paleologina”She was the daughter of Constantine Dragasis, one of the many rulers – heirs of the great Serbian krali (= king) Stephen Dusan. It is estimated that she was about 19 years old when she married Manuel II Palaiologos (late 1390), a few months before he became Emperor. She showed that she was fully aware of her position and circumstances, as well as of the role they dictated to her at all levels.
It is very characteristic and eloquent, in their succinctness, what the famous philosopher George Gemistos – Plethon, her contemporary, writes about the Empress: “This basilica with much humility and patience seemed to face both forms of life. Neither in times of trial was she discouraged, nor when she was happy did she rest, but in every case she did what was right. She met prudence with courage, more than any other woman. She was distinguished for her prudence. And her justice was of the highest degree. We never learned to do harm to anyone, either among men or women. On the contrary, we have known her to do much good and to many. In what other way can righteousness be seen in practice, except in the fact that no one ever willfully does evil to anyone, but only good to many?”
She was worthy of her philosopher and philochristian husband Manuel and for 35 years they managed to honour virtue with words and deeds. “Because of me teaching the practice, but I work by becoming models and images of disciplined love”. They had eight children. Two girls and six boys, two of whom ascended to the imperial throne, John VIII and Constantine XI, the last legendary emperor. He raised them “in the nurture and admonition of the Lord” and never “with tears of prayer and love did he admonish any one”. With patience and perseverance, with care and prayer he chiselled their characters, gave them together with the “Invoke” and the “euphoria”. In this way, he managed, among other things, to put an end to some 90 years of conflicts between members of the imperial family over power that had exhausted the empire.
She had a special love for the monasteries. This inspired her whole family. Her husband, after handing over the throne to his eldest son John two months before his death (29 March 1425), retired to the Monastery of Pantokrator in Constantinople, where he became a monk named Matthew. After the death of her husband, she became a nun (1425) in the Monastery of Lady Martha, under the name of Hypomion.
An important figure of that era, Gennadios Scholarios, the first Ecumenical Patriarch after the fall of Constantinople, in his Paramythic Discourse to King Constantine XI, “On the sleep of his mother, Saint Hypomoni”, says the following: “When that long Queen was visited by a wise man, he was amazed by her own wisdom. When she was met by an ascetic, he left, after the meeting, ashamed of the poverty of his own virtue, compared to her virtue. When a wise man met it, he added to his own more prudence. When a lawgiver met it, he became more careful. When a judge conversed with her, he found that he had before him a practical Rule of Law. When a courageous man (met her), he felt defeated, feeling surprised by her patience, prudence and the strength of her character. When she was approached by a philanthropist, she acquired a stronger sense of charity. When a friend of amusement met her, she acquired prudence, and, knowing the humility in her face, she repented. When a zealot of piety met her, he became more jealous. Anyone in pain, by meeting her, understood his pain. Every arrogant man punished himself for his excessive generosity. And in general there was no one who came into contact with her and did not become better.”
God called her to Himself on 13 March 1450, having spent 35 years as an Empress and 25 years as a humble nun. Her contemporary deacon John the Gentle, in his Paramythic Discourse to John Palaeologus on the sleep of his mother, Saint Hypnotism, summarizes: “Now as for your blessed Mother, the only Mother, everything in which she lived was excellent, her faith, works, genus, manner, life, speech and everything together were modest and worthy of divine honour, and as she lived as a sharer of divine Providence, so she lived and lived.”.
“Saint Despina”, as George Frantzis calls her, connected the meaning of her monastic name(Patience) with the way of dealing with both the happy moments and the infinite difficulties of her whole life. Patience according to life, deed, and the name of the only one. “Her patience hath made her soul.”
Her memory is commemorated on the 29th of May.
Source:
Spiritual Orthodox Messages of Sotiriou Ecostomis, Orthodox Hive
The work is located in the church of the Assumption of the Virgin Mary in the parish of Agios Athanasios Trilofos.
Apolyticon
Sound pl. α’. The common word.
We praise the closed queen, Patience the most holy, the pious dove of the world, thrown down from the world of confusion to the tents of heaven in love, exercise and humiliate, crying out, ‘Mother, thou thyself, break our bonds of sin.’
