Finding a Patron Saint
As a convert to Orthodoxy, celebrating “Name Days,” or the feast days of patron saints, was a new concept for me. I had heard that Orthodox converts often adopted a patron saint at their Chrismation and were even called by that name thereafter, in some churches. I wasn’t given a “Christian” name at birth. Frankly, I was named after a Russian neighbor because my mom liked the sound of her name. Some people I knew had a “baptismal name,” but I was baptized at age 12, and it wasn’t a custom in my denomination to change your name at baptism. Until becoming Orthodox, I had never even heard of the martyr St. Adrian of Nicomedia (306AD) from which the name Adrienne is derived, and I likewise knew nothing of St. Emmelia of Caesarea (375AD), called the “Mother of Saints”, who was to become my patron saint.
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