Helen of Sinope

Holy New Martyr Helen of Sinope was a virgin of the Bekiary family of Sinope (in present-⁠day Turkey) in the eighteenth century, killed for the faith. The Orthodox Church commemorates her on 1 November.

Helen was a fifteen-⁠year-⁠old Greek Christian, living with her family in the Christian enclave at Sinope. One day her mother sent her to buy embroidery thread from a shop in Kryonas. Ukuzoglu Pasha, the Ottoman governor of Sinope, saw her in the street and ordered her to be brought to his residence. Ukuzoglu tried two or three times to violate her, but was pushed back by an unseen force. After this Helen escaped and returned home.

Ukuzoglu then summoned the Council of Elders of Sinope and threatened the Christian community of Sinope with death unless Helen were brought to him. The Christian leaders gathered at the Greek School of Sinope and persuaded Helen's father to give her back to Ukuzoglu, who tried repeatedly, without success, to violate her. Throughout this ordeal Helen recited the Six Psalms and other prayers. Ukuzoglu then sent her to prison, where she was tortured and killed: two nails were driven into her skull and then her head was cut off.

After her death the jailers put her body in a sack and threw it into the Black Sea. But the sack floated away, with a heavenly light shining on it. The body floated until it reached a place on the coast, where it sank to the bottom of the sea. According to an Orthodox source, a light coming from the bottom of the sea drew the attention of a crew of Greek sailors to the place where Helen's body lay. Expecting to find gold, the sailors dived toward the source of the light and found the sack. After they brought up the remains, a divine revelation showed them to be a source of healing.

Helen's body was sent to Russia, but her head was returned to Sinope, where it was venerated in the church of the Panagia. The relic was said to be a source of miracles, especially for those who suffered from headaches. After the Greek genocide and the population exchange, the Greeks of the city were driven out in 1924, but the leader of the community, Christos Kafaropoulos, brought the relic with them to Greece. It is venerated today in the church of Saint Marina in the Ano Toumba quarter of Thessaloniki.