Protomartyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles Thekla

Thecla's story is told in the second-century Acts of Paul and Thecla and retold by Dimitry of Rostov. According to it, she was an eighteen-year-old from Iconium, engaged to a man named Thamyris, who heard Paul preach in her city and chose not to marry. Her mother and fiancé denounced her, and she was condemned to be burned, but, the Life tells, rain put the fire out.

She went on to follow Paul, and in Antioch was condemned to wild beasts, which the Life says did not harm her. Later she lived on a hill near Seleucia, healing the sick, until physicians who had lost patients set young men on her. According to tradition, a rock opened and shut around her. The Church calls her the first woman martyr and equal to the apostles; the Acts are largely legendary.