Venerable Martyr Febronia

Life

The daughter of Senator Prosphorus of Rome. In order to escape marriage with a mortal man, she betrothed herself to Christ and was tonsured in the East, in the land of Assyria, in a monastery where her aunt Bryena was abbess. Lysimachus, the son of a certain nobleman, wished to marry Febronia, but since Emperor Diocletian suspected him of being a secret Christian, he sent him to the East with Selinus, his uncle, to capture and slay Christians. Selinus was cruel as a beast, and everywhere mercilessly destroyed Christians. Lysimachus, on the contrary, wherever he could, spared Christians and hid them from his beast-like uncle. Having wrought devastation upon the Christians in Palmyra, Selinus came to the city of Sivapolis, near which was a convent with fifty women ascetics, among whom was Febronia. Although she was only twenty years old, Febronia was respected both in the monastery and in the city for her great meekness, wisdom, and temperance. In that monastery the rule of the Blessed Platonida, a former abbess, was observed: that every Friday be spent solely in prayers and the reading of sacred books, without any other work. Bryena had appointed Febronia to read the sacred books to the sisters, and this she did standing hidden behind a curtain, so that no one would be distracted or captivated by the beauty of her face. When Selinus heard of Febronia, he ordered that she be brought before him. When the holy maiden would not deny Christ or consent to marriage with a mortal man, he ordered her flogged, then her teeth knocked out, then her hands cut off, then her breasts, then her feet, and finally that she be beheaded with a sword. But on that very day a terrible punishment of God befell the torturer: madness entered into him, and a certain mortal terror seized him; in that terror he struck his head against a marble pillar and fell dead. Lysimachus ordered that the body of Febronia be gathered and carried to the monastery, where it was honorably buried, and he with many other soldiers was baptized. From the relics of Saint Febronia many healings occurred, and she also appeared on the day of her feast and stood in her customary place among the sisters, and all the sisters beheld her with fear and joy. Saint Febronia honorably suffered and departed to eternal blessedness in the year 310, and in 363 her relics were transferred to Constantinople.

From the Hymn of Praise

Febronia the maiden confessed Christ,Standing before the court, bloody and pale.Young Febronia, like a palm branchHeavy with beautiful fruit,