Icon of the Samaritan Woman – F17

Description

At Jacob’s Well near Sychar in Samaria, Christ stops to rest while His Disciples go into the town to find provisions to eat.  Saint Photini (Svetlana in Slavic languages) comes to draw water, and He asks her for water from the well to drink.  Christ reveals to her that He already knows of her unlawful relations with a man who is not her husband, and affirms against her beliefs that salvation is from the Jews, not the Samaritans.  She learns by listening with an open heart that this is the Messiah for whom the whole world inwardly yearns.  The Samaritan Woman then leaves her bucket and goes into the town to confess that she has seen the Christ who can give to all the spiritual water that is completely fulfilling.

Saint Photini was baptized with her two sons and five sisters, and then in Carthage she preached the Light of the Gospel, for which she is named, where she was arrested and brought to trial in Rome before Nero.  She converted Nero’s daughter Domnina, and then was martyred by being thrown down into a well where she died in this life, and was made alive by Christ in Heaven forever.  She truly tasted the waters of Everlasting Life.