Augustine Sokolovski
On June 22, the Church celebrates the memory of Saint Aquilina of Phoenicia. She lived in the city of Byblos, from which the word Bible itself comes. After her martyrdom, her relics were transferred to Constantinople.
The name Aquilina translates as eagle. She is one of the holy children. Her life is extremely short. But the history of her centuries-long veneration in Constantinople is glorious and detailed.
According to the life, Aquilina was born into a Christian family. But she was orphaned early. Her biography is not entirely clear. The suffering tells us that she was orphaned early. Once, during the persecution, the police, who were supposed to monitor public order, and not identify dissent, overheard Aquilina, a small ten-year-old child, preaching Christ to other children. For this, she was caught, tortured and eventually beheaded.
In the Orthodox tradition, all saints are divided into groups. In the original Greek, these groups literally mean "choirs."
There are truly very large choir of saints. These are martyrs, holy monks, and finally bishops. But there are very small choirs.
First, there are the holy unmercenaries. This is what the Church calls physicians who, through the power of grace, achieved personal holiness and treated many people free of charge. They had medical training. It is very important to emphasize that they did not only heal. Their knowledge was scientific; medicine was their profession; they were professional physicians.
Another small group of this type is the choir of holy priests., like John of Kronstadt or Alexei of Moscow. The choir of fools for Christ is also very small. There are very few who suffered innocently, like the Russian saints Boris and Gleb. Another choir, perhaps the most recent, is that of the disabled saints. At their head is the blessed Matrona. And there are very, very few child saints. “Do not hinder the children from coming to Me,” says the Gospel of Matthew (Matt. 19:4). Perhaps this is also said about children’s holiness.