ST. MUIRGEN OF THE SEA (JAN. 27TH)

 

Edited by Bp. Joseph 

Today, we celebrate the memory of the only Mermaid Saint of the Christian Tradition, St. Muirgen of the Sea, commemorated on January 27th. Her secular name was "Lí Ban" from Old Irish, lí meaning "beauty", and ban "of women", hence "the most beautiful woman." In the legend surrounding the formation of Lough Neagh, she was a woman turned mermaid who inhabited the area before the great lake gushed up onto the dry land and collapsed the area into a deep lake. Lí Ban's family drowned, but she survived in an underwater cave in the lake for over a year, after which she was transformed by an unnamed supernatural forces into a half-human, half-salmon being, and her faithful little dog was transformed into an otter. Because of the similarity of her name to an ancient Celtic mermaid deity, it is speculated that she desperately sold her soul to a pagan demon in order to procure this transformation, which indirectly led to her death at her baptism. 

According to this ancient tale, Lí Ban was free to roam the seas for 300 years, while maintaining her dwelling under the same Lough. Her supernaturally hypnotic singing caused much grief to the male inhabitants of the seashores of Ireland and to sailors on their ships, causing many men to go crazy or to drown themselves in search of her elusive and overwhelmingly beautiful voice. One day in AD 557, the mermaid was seen from a ship by St. Comgall of Bangor and a novice who was traveling with him, both of the Celtic monks on their way to Rome. St. Comgall called to her and she swam to him, since his voice was full of goodness and truth, and he was both unafraid of her and unmoved by her beauty. She promised to meet the monks at the seaport inlet of Larne Lough in Ireland in one year’s time, when they had returned from Rome. 

The next year, she appeared just as she had promised, but she was captured in a fishnet by the over-eager young novice and a resident fisherman. St. Comgall, moved with compassion for the beautiful, tormented maiden, asked if she was willing to be baptized and receive the Gift of Life by the power of the Holy Spirit, and thus break whatever curse under which she had fallen. She eagerly consented, and there, on the side of the Lough, Li Ban was baptized by St. Comgall, and given the Christian name Muirgein, meaning "Born of the Sea." Upon her baptism, she rapidly aged and returned to her human form, giving up the ghost just after receiving Holy Communion. She testified that she had forfeited another 300 years of longevity in exchange for her Christian soul and that she died with joy in the arms of her Savior.

An Ancient Celtic Stone Carved Icon of St. Muirgen of the Sea

The "Mermaid Chair" is a Pew Carved in the 8th or 9th Century in Celtic Cornwall with the Likeness of a Saintly Mermaid

St. Muirgen's capturer, the novice Béoán son of Innli, was a member of the monastery of Tech Dabeoc. St. Muirgen agreed to be buried in Béoán's monastery near Donegal, but later on, a dispute arose over the right to her burial between the young monk and the owner of the fishing net, who wished to take her body as a trophy and make a profit from the supernatural story. This argument was settled by divine judgment, when two oxen were hitched to a cart as in the story of the Ark of the Covenant, and they pulled her body to the monastery of Dabeoc in Donegal under the guidance of unseen angels. 

St. Muirgen is named as an "Ancient Saint", venerated by the people of Ireland before formal glorification became the standard within the Church, and her story appears in the Aided Echach Maic Maireda called "The Death of Eochaid son of Mairid", which was preserved in the 12th century Lebor na Huidre, now known as "The Book of the Dun Cow". This account was echoed in the Ulster Genealogies of Irish Saints from the 17th Century, called “The Annals of the Four Masters”. The tale has also been translated into English by P. W. Joyce and by Standish Hayes O'Grady in 1892, from whence St. Muirgen's story has been transmitted to the rest of the Orthodox world. She is now venerated by both the Eastern Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church, and she is especially dear to us in the Western Orthodox Church. 

COLLECT

ALMIGHTY GOD, Who didst save the soul of an oppressed and abandoned young maiden, St. Muirgen, by the power of Thy Holy Spirit through the regeneration of Holy Baptism, and gave her a new name and place amongst Thy Saints; Grant that we, like her, would willingly receive Thy Holy Sacraments, not regarding the cost and despising all shame, so that we might enter with her into Thy eternal glory and rest; Through Jesus Christ our Lord, Thy Son, Who livest and reignest with Thee, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, ever One God, world without end. Amen.