Holy Martyr Fervuta, Her Widowed Sister, and Their Handmaid

Life

In the time of the Persian Emperor Shapur, the holy Bishop Symeon was slain. Fervuta, the bishop's sister, was taken into the royal court at the empress's wish. But Fervuta was of extraordinary beauty, and many suitors pressed their suit, among them pagan priests and soothsayers. Fervuta refused them all, thereby arousing great wrath against herself. And when the empress fell ill at that time, all the priests explained to the emperor that the empress had been poisoned by Fervuta, and as a remedy for the ailing empress they prescribed the following: that Fervuta, her sister, and their handmaid, as Christians, should be sawn asunder with a saw, that the three halves of their bodies should be placed on one side and three on the other, and that the empress should be carried between them. The emperor agreed with this bloodthirsty soothsaying proposal. And so Fervuta together with her sister and their handmaid suffered thus for Christ in the year 343, thereby earning an unfading crown in the immortal Kingdom of their Lord.