Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah

Sarah, Rebecca, Rachel and Leah are the matriarchs of the people of Israel in the Book of Genesis, the wives of the patriarchs Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. In the Orthodox Church they are commemorated among the righteous women of the Old Testament on the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, before the Nativity of the Lord. Our sources give no separate commemoration days for them and do not speak of a canonization: they are righteous women of the Old Testament, not saints by a canonization.

The four mothers

The term "the four mothers" (in Hebrew) means the four wives of the three patriarchs: Sarah, wife of Abraham, Rebecca, wife of Isaac, and Rachel and Leah, wives of Jacob. Sometimes the term refers to the four wives of Jacob (Leah, Rachel, Bilhah and Zilpah), from whom the tribes of Israel came. The word is not found in the Hebrew Bible but is often used in rabbinic literature from the second century after Christ. Judaism, Christianity and Islam hold that the patriarchs, together with their primary wives (Sarah, Rebecca and Leah), are entombed in the Cave of Machpelah at Hebron, a site holy to the three religions; Rachel is said to be buried separately, at Rachel's Tomb, near Bethlehem, at the place where she is believed to have died in childbirth. About the patriarchs scholars observe that archaeology has so far produced no direct evidence of their existence, and the archaeologist William Dever wrote that after a century of research no one respectable hopes any longer to recover a context that would make Abraham, Isaac or Jacob "historical figures". This is the opinion of some scholars, not the teaching of the Church.

In the Orthodox Church

The Orthodox Church devotes to the memory of the righteous women of the Old Testament the Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, before the Nativity of Christ. In the readings of this Sunday the following women of the Old Testament are commemorated: the foremother Eve; righteous Sarah, wife of Abraham; righteous Rebecca, wife of Isaac; righteous Leah, first wife of Jacob; righteous Rachel, second wife of Jacob; righteous Miriam, sister of Moses; righteous Rahab of Jericho; righteous Deborah, judge of Israel; righteous Jael, who killed Sisera; righteous Ruth; the prophetess Huldah; righteous Judith, who killed Holofernes; righteous Esther, who delivered the Jewish people from Haman; righteous Anna, mother of the prophet Samuel; righteous Susanna.