Righteous Esther + Commemorated on the Sunday before Nativity (Sunday of the Holy Forefathers)
Esther, who bore the Hebrew name Hadassah, was a Jewish woman of the Persian exile who became queen to King Ahasuerus and, at the risk of her own life, interceded with the king to avert the destruction of her people. Her story is told in the biblical Book of Esther, set in the Achaemenid Empire whose capital was Susa (Shushan); the king is commonly identified with Xerxes I. Orphaned in her youth, she was raised by her cousin Mordecai and, on his counsel, concealed her Jewish heritage when she was taken into the royal household.
The Orthodox Church numbers her among the Holy Forefathers — the righteous ancestors of Christ according to the flesh who lived before and under the Law — commemorated on the Sunday before the Nativity of Christ. In Christian tradition she has also been read typologically as a foreshadowing of the Virgin Mary, the queen who intercedes on behalf of her people.
+
On her scroll are the words: "O Lord God of Abraham, Hearken to the voice of the hopeless, and deliver us from the hand of them that devise evil."
