Holy Virgin Martyr Pelagia

Life

A maiden of a distinguished family from Antioch. In the time of Emperor Numerian, the commander of Antioch had sent soldiers to bring Pelagia before the court, as she was then a well-known Christian. The soldiers surrounded the house and called the holy maiden to the door. She appeared before them, and when she heard they had come to lead her before the judge, she feigned cheerfulness and told the soldiers to wait just a moment or two while she went up to change her clothes. Then she climbed to the roof of the house, raised her hands to heaven, and prayed at length to God, that God would receive her soul and not permit her virginal purity to be defiled. And God received her soul, and her body fell dead before the soldiers. "Her death," writes Saint John Chrysostom, "was the means not of a natural fall but of a command of God," and he continues: "And so, this virginal body, purer than any gold, lay upon the ground: angels surrounded it, archangels honored it, Christ Himself was beside it."