Orthodox · † 304
Virginmartyr Lucy of Syracuse
Commemorated: December 26 (December 13, Old Style)
Life
According to her Acts, Lucy was a young Christian of a noble family of Syracuse in Sicily. She went with her mother Eutychia, long ill, to pray at the tomb of St Agatha in Catania, and the Acts tell that her mother was healed there. Lucy then persuaded her to give their wealth to the poor instead of keeping it as her dowry.
The young man she had been promised to denounced her to the governor Paschasius. The Acts tell that the guards could not move her even with oxen, and that she was finally killed with a sword in 304, under Diocletian. Her cult is ancient: her name is in the Roman Canon of the Mass.
Places
- Place of birth: Syracuse
- Place of death: Syracuse
- Place of burial: Venice
Retold briefly in our own words from: the Roman Martyrology (1916); Butler’s Lives of the Saints.
The commemorations of the day: Ponomar (ponomar.net), CC BY-SA 3.0.
Places and years: Wikidata (CC0), each saint matched by hand.