Right-Believing Empress Theophano Martinakia, Byzantine Empress

St. Theophano Martinakia was born around 866 in Constantinople to Constantine Martinakios and Anna, a family related to the Amorian dynasty. Around 882, Emperor Basil I arranged her marriage to his son, the future Leo VI the Wise. The union was unhappy from the start: the young couple was falsely accused of plotting against Basil and imprisoned for three years. After Leo's accession in 886, Theophano became empress, but her husband soon took Zoe Zaoutzaina as his mistress, and around 893 the pious empress withdrew to a monastery in the Blachernae district of Constantinople. She devoted her remaining years to prayer, fasting, and charity — building and restoring churches and monasteries, caring for widows and orphans, and secretly visiting the poor dressed in plain clothes so as not to be recognized. She was credited with healing miracles. She died around 897; her incorrupt relics rest in the Patriarchal Church of St. George in the Phanar district of Istanbul, with a particle preserved at Dionysiou Monastery on Mount Athos.