Saint Lucia the Virgin Martyr of Syracuse
Virgin martyr of Sicily
- Feast day
- December 13
- Lived
- c. 283–304
- Patronage
- The blind and those with eye disease; light in the darkest days of the year
Saint Lucia of Syracuse, martyred under Diocletian, is venerated in both East and West; her name means 'light' and her feast falls in the darkest week of the northern year.
Life
Lucia, a young noblewoman of Syracuse in Sicily, obtained the healing of her mother Eutychia at the tomb of Saint Agatha in Catania, and in thanksgiving distributed her dowry to the poor and vowed virginity. The suitor she had refused denounced her as a Christian to the governor Paschasius.
Condemned to a brothel, she could not be moved from where she stood — not by soldiers, not by oxen. Attempts to burn her failed, and she was killed with a sword, prophesying the end of the persecution before she died.
Veneration
Her relics were venerated in Syracuse, then Constantinople, and since 1204 in Venice. Because of her name and the later tradition of her eyes, she is invoked against blindness, and her feast on December 13 is kept with processions of light across the Orthodox and Western worlds alike.