A saint's day
St Alena of Brussels
St Alena was born at Dilbeek near Brussels to noble pagan parents in the seventh century and was baptized without their knowledge. When her father sent guards to bring her home from the Divine services, she resisted and lost an arm in the struggle, and she died of her wounds in prison around 640. An angel bore her arm to the chapel where she used to pray, and the miracles at her grave moved her parents to embrace the faith she had died for.
The dates
- Kept on
- 18 June (1 July on the Old Calendar)
- Next, New Calendar
- Next, Old Calendar
The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.
How the day is kept
Orthodox Christians pray to her for the healing of the eyes and for the conversion of unbelieving parents and relatives.
Russian and Ukrainian name-day guides point many girls named Alina or Alyona to her, or baptize them under a similar Orthodox name, for an Alyona usually St Helen. She is a popular name-day patron rather than a saint of the traditional Russian calendar.
Her relics were enshrined at Forest, now part of Brussels, which became a place of pilgrimage.
Name days
These names keep their name day on this feast:
The saint
Icons for the feast
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