Pantokrator Typikon

The Shepherd of Hermes, a Christian apocalyptic text from early-second-century Rome, reveals that Christian communities had some form of communal organization for widows and orphans beyond the family relationships. The author of the Shepherd mentions a woman named Grapte who had the responsibility of teaching the widows and orphans of the Roman church. It is probable that she was herself a widow. No other early Christian text describes a widow entrusted with instructing a group of orphan children, but the Pantokrator Typikon from twelfth-century Constantinople provided salaries for old-... 

From the time of the Shepherd to the twelfth-century Pantokrator Typikon over one thousand years elapsed. During these many years, neither Greek patristic texts nor later Byzantine ecclesiastical sources referred to widowed women, known as graptai, who cared for groups of homeless children. It is therefore impossible to prove the continuous existence of such a ministry in the East Roman Church. Nevertheless, the presence of these graptai at the Pantokrator monastery at least raises the possibility that widows, enrolled by churches in the manner Paul described, had been instructing orphans in small Christian schools for centuries. 

The Vita Sanctae Matronae and the later evidence from the Pantokrator Typikon thus suggest the continued existence of widows who had a special calling to work with orphans. Since the Vita Sanctae Matronae described Susanna as having embraced virginity early in life and... 

Typikon Pantokrator. "Le typikon du Christ Sauveur Pantocrator." Edited by Paul Gautier. REB 32 (1974) 1-145. 

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