La Santa Eulalia de Barcelona

The Damascene Gallery is an icon workshop located less than a mile from the Hermitage of the Holy Cross, a Russian Orthodox men’s monastery in West Virginia. From them, I bought an icon of St. Eulalia of Barcelona. It was painted by a deacon whose artistic style is that of the New Jordanville school. I have known the story of La Santa Eulalia since I encountered her through a group of Guatemalan immigrants about 16 years ago. La Santa Eulalia dates to just before Constantine began his ascent to the Imperial throne and less than a decade before the Edict of Toleration issued by the Tetrarchy. But, that edict came too late for her. She was either 12 or 13 and was horribly tortured to death right before Constantine won his war. She died in 303, the Edict of Toleration was issued in 311, she would not have been even 21 years old had she lived.

She quickly became highly revered in Barcilonum, the ancient name for Barcelona to the point that she is the co-patron of Barcelona. Spanish conquistadores took her from Spain to the New World where a city in the mountains of central-west Guatemala, in the Department of Huehuetenango was named after her. There is also a city in her name in the Province of Chihuahua, Mexico. The indigenous inhabitants of that Department fell in love with her and highly revere her memory. Many of those people emigrated to Birmingham back when. It was always difficult to speak with them because Spanish was their second language. Their first language was either Mam or Q’anjob’al, with a rare few speaking Akatek, Jakaltek, Awakatek, or Chuj. Many of the women only spoke the indigenous language at first and had to receive the sermon in translation. I have fond memories of them.

Brand Name Xanax Online Because I knew that there were Orthodox icons of her, I thought I would look her up on an Orthodox information site in order to see what they said of her. I found that the OCA has a full listing of her and her history, but neither the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese or the orthodox wiki does. I was rather saddened by the omission.

https://polyploid.net/blog/?p=io0sk8lwjz I recently thought of her again because I encountered some Guatemalan indigenous Orthodox believers. I knew that there had been a move of many Guatemalan indigenes to Orthodoxy, but never thought I would encounter some. Yet, there they were and I remembered La Santa Eulalia. And I thought, here she is again interceding for those innocents who are persecuted unjustly. You see, many Guatemalan indigenes experience discrimination every bit as strong as did African-Americans back in the 1920’s. During the 1980’s, death squads regularly murdered them. One of the reasons for the flight of so many to the USA is the fear of death that the European descended brought to them. They suffered merely for being indigenes. She suffered merely for being a Christian. Many children were killed during those times, as the death squads did not care what the age of the person was. I now believe that Santa Eulalia became involved in interceding for them before the throne of God. Many of them came to this country back when we still believed in mercy. May she continue to intercede for them and for us as well.