Flaccilla

Saint Flaccilla the Empress was the first wife of the emperor Theodosius the Great and the mother of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius. She died in 385 or 386. She is commemorated in mid-⁠September, on 14 or 15 September by the old calendar.

Family and marriage

Flaccilla, in full Aelia Flavia Flaccilla, was of Roman stock from Hispania, like her husband. About her parents little is certain; some think her father was Claudius Antonius, prefect of Gaul and consul in 382, but the connection is doubtful. In 376 she married Theodosius, son of the general Theodosius, who had then withdrawn into private life in Hispania. They had three children: Arcadius, Honorius, born on 9 September 384, and a daughter, Pulcheria.

Empress

After the death of the emperor Valens, in 378, Theodosius was set in his place on 19 January 379, and Flaccilla became empress and received the title Augusta. She was an ardent supporter of the Creed of Nicaea. It is told that she prevented a meeting between Theodosius and Eunomius of Cyzicus, leader of the harshest Arian party, lest he be led astray from the true faith. Saint Ambrose and Saint Gregory of Nyssa praise her Christian virtue, calling her a “leader of justice” and a “pillar of the Church”.

Almsgiving

Blessed Theodoret writes of her acts of charity: she herself tended with her own hands the disabled and the sick, among them lepers. He puts in her mouth the words that to distribute money belongs to the imperial dignity, but she offers for the imperial dignity itself personal service to the Giver. The Palatium Flaccillianum in Constantinople was named in her honour.

Death

She died in 385 or 386, soon after her daughter, and Saint Gregory of Nyssa delivered the funeral oration for her. After her death the people of Antioch, displeased at the new taxes of 387, pulled down her statue. The emperor, out of his great love for her, wished to punish the city, but pardoned it at the request of Bishop Flavian. On that occasion John Chrysostom, then a priest at Antioch, spoke words of exhortation to those who had laid hands on the statues.