Great Martyr Marina (Margaret) of Antioch in Pisidia

Marina (called Margaret in the West) was, according to her Passion, born in Antioch of Pisidia, the daughter of a pagan priest, who disowned her when she became a Christian. When she was fifteen and was tending her father’s sheep, the prefect Olybrius saw her, wanted to marry her, and when she refused, he had her tortured. In prison, the story says, the devil came to her as a monstrous serpent, and she drove it away with the sign of the cross.

The account tells that many people who saw her endurance believed, and that she was beheaded on 17 July. Little is known of her historically, and her story, which reached the Latin West as well, is a mixture of record and legend.