Skip to main content
There's a Saint for That! Search

St. Euphrosyne of Polotsk

Feast 05-23

Patron of

About

Euphrosyne of Polotsk, born Predslava, was the granddaughter of the prince of Polotsk and daughter of Prince Svyatoslav of Vitebsk in twelfth-century Rus. Refusing marriage, she secretly entered a convent and took the monastic name Euphrosyne, devoting herself to prayer, learning, and the copying of sacred books. She founded convents at Polotsk and at Seltse, and commissioned the famous jewelled cross of Polotsk, a masterpiece of medieval Rus craftsmanship. In old age she undertook a pilgrimage to the Holy Land and died in Jerusalem around 1173. Long venerated among the Orthodox of Belarus, Ukraine, and Russia, she has been numbered since 1984 among the patron saints of Belarus. Her feast is kept on May 23.

nuns, nun, sisters, religious sisters, women religious, consecrated women, convents, cloistered nuns, nuns life, sisterhood, religious women, scholars, scholar, scholarship, academics, academic research, learned, intellectuals, researchers, professors, academic study, learned persons, pilgrims, pilgrimage, pilgrim, pilgrimages, holy journeys, religious travel, sacred journeys, shrine visits, single women, single woman, unmarried women, single ladies, unmarried ladies, women living alone, single catholic women, single life women, spinsters, single girls

Suggested prayer

O God, who inspired St. Euphrosyne to exchange a royal court for the quiet of the cloister and the labor of copying your word, grant through her intercession that we may treasure wisdom above all earthly glory. We ask this through Christ our Lord. Amen.

Sources

Other saints to pray to

For nuns

For scholars