Olympias was born in Constantinople into a senator’s family. While still young, she was promised to a nobleman, but he died before they could marry, and so she chose to give herself to God. Olympias gave away her vast wealth to the poor and sick, seeing it as God’s money, not her own. She helped build churches, hospitals, monasteries, and shelters. The holy Patriarch Nectarius appointed this devoted Christian as a deaconess. She gave aid not only to those in need but also to visiting bishops, including Gregory the Theologian, Epiphanius of Cyprus, and Saint Amphilochius of Iconium.
Saint Olympias shared a spiritual bond with Saint John Chrysostom. When he was exiled, she was deeply grieved. Because of her loyalty and kindness to exiled monks from the Egyptian desert, Olympias faced slander from Patriarch Theophilus of Alexandria. Among other false accusations, she was blamed for starting the fire that destroyed the Hagia Sophia Cathedral, which burned after John Chrysostom’s exile. At her trial, Olympias was ordered to pay a steep fine. She then left Constantinople for Cius, but her pursuers tracked her down, eventually forcing her exile to Nicomedia. From 405 until her death, she lived in exile, enduring many hardships. Saint John Chrysostom’s letters gave her strength.
While in exile, Olympias reposed in 409. Afterwards, she appeared in a vision to the Bishop of Nicomedia, instructing him to place her body in a wooden coffin and cast it upon the waves. “Wherever the sea carries the ark, there I shall be buried,” she said. Her wish was fulfilled when the coffin reached the shore near Constantinople, at a place called Vrochti. The people, having heard of this wonder, gathered on the shore and welcomed the blessed relics. The deaconess's body found rest in the village church. Two hundred years later, her sacred bones were moved to the heart of Byzantium. There, in the women's monastery that Olympias had founded, the saint at last lay still.
