About the Holy Myrrh-Bearing Women

The Holy Myrrh-bearing women followed the Lord while He preached and served Him and His disciples from their own possessions. For His sake, they aided the poor, the sick and the suffering. During His sufferings and death on the Cross, even when all the apostles had run away in fear, the Myrrh-bearers did not abandon their Savior. They stood at Golgotha (the place of the Crucifixion) and with their presence helped ease the unbearable pain and suffering of the All-Pure Mother of God. The Myrrh-bearers did not abandon the Lord even after His death and burial. Very early in the morning they came with myrrh (expensive oil) according to the Jewish tradition, to anoint the Lord's precious Body and render Him their final respects. There, the Lord rewarded the women for all their undying love and devoted care. The Myrrhbearers worthily became the first witnesses to the Resurrection of Christ, having found the empty tomb and having heard the joyful news from the angel. The Holy and Equal-to-the-Apostles Myrrhbearer Mary Magdalene was the first to meet and worship the risen Savior and to go and tell of this to His Apostles.

There were many myrrh-bearing women that served Christ during His life on earth, but from the Holy Gospel we know only the names of seven: Saints Mary Magdalene (June 22 o.s.), Mary the wife of Cleophas (May 23), Salome the mother of the sons of Zebedee /the Holy Apostles James and John the Theologian (Aug. 3), Joanna the wife of Herod's steward (June 27), Mary and Martha the sisters of Lazarus (June 4), and Susanna. The Holy Orthodox Church always celebrates their common holy memory on the third Sunday and week after Pascha.

Let the Holy Myrrh-bearers serve as a saintly example to us of the true Christian woman: with their ardent, constant and unwavering love for the Lord, their selfless service to Him, to the poor and to the suffering. We, like the Myrrh-bearers, should seek for ourselves and for our loved ones, comfort at the Tomb and Cross of our Savior. Only then will each one of us be able, according to her own strength and ability, to serve Him quietly, without complaint, and most importantly without fear. Let us bring our good deeds and our singing praise to Christ in the same manner that the Myrrh-bearers carried precious myrrh to His tomb, so that the All-Merciful One may reward us with the ultimate joy of His Resurrection, as He also rewarded our saintly patrons.

O holy Myrrh-bearing women, pray to God for us!

Troparion, tone II:

Standing before the myrrh-bearing women at the tomb, the angel cried: "Myrrh is meet for the dead, yet Christ hath shown Himself to be a stranger to corruption! But cry aloud: The Lord hath risen, granting the world great mercy!"

Kontakion, tone II:

Thou didst command the myrrh-bearers to rejoice, and didst console the lamentation of our first mother, Eve, by Thy resurrection, O Christ God; and didst command Thine apostles to preach: The Savior hath risen from the tomb!

Sources: "Nastol'naya kniga dlya svyaschenno-tserkovnosluzhitelei", S.V. Bulgakov, 1900. "Redeeming the Time, Vol, 03.02 3rd Sunday of Pascha--The Holy Myrrhbearers--April 12/25, 1999", "Homily on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers in the year 1351 by St. Gregory Palamas", from the website: www.orthodox.net, taken and used with permission from Fr. Seraphim Holland (ROCOR).