St. Olympias the Deaconess

A rich widow of Constantinople, widowed within two years, who refused the emperor’s choice of a second husband, was ordained a deaconess, and gave her fortune to the Church and the poor through a community of women beside the cathedral. She was the closest friend of St John Chrysostom, and when he was exiled she was tried and fined for her loyalty to him. Seventeen of his letters to her from exile survive, among the most personal things he wrote, on suffering and despondency. She died in exile at Nicomedia around 408. Feast: July 25.