Great Martyr Barbara and Martyr Juliana, at Heliopolis in Syria

According to her Life, Barbara was the daughter of Dioscorus, a rich pagan of Heliopolis in Syria; the Roman Martyrology places her at Nicomedia. Her father kept her shut in a tower, and there she became a Christian. While he was away, she had a third window cut in his new bathhouse, saying that the three windows stood for the Trinity.

Dioscorus handed her over to the governor Martianus, and after torture he beheaded her with his own hand; the Life adds that lightning struck him soon afterwards. A woman named Juliana, who wept for Barbara and confessed herself a Christian, was executed with her, c. 306. Historians cannot confirm the story, but Barbara was widely venerated from the 7th century, and by tradition part of her relics has been in Kyiv since the 12th century.