Saint Paraskevi the Righteous Martyr
Virgin martyr of Rome
- Feast day
- July 26
- Lived
- 2nd century
- Patronage
- Eyesight and the healing of blindness
Saint Paraskevi is invoked throughout the Greek world for diseases of the eyes, and her icon characteristically shows her holding a small dish with two eyes.
Life
Born to elderly Christian parents in Rome who had prayed long for a child, she was named Paraskevi because she was born on a Friday — the day of the Lord's Passion. After their death she sold her inheritance, gave it to the poor, and went out preaching.
Arrested under the Emperor Antoninus, she was crowned with a red-hot helmet and thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil and pitch. When the emperor mocked her God, she splashed the liquid toward him and he was blinded; at his plea she healed him and he released the Christians. She was finally beheaded under his successor.
Veneration
Countless chapels in Greece, Cyprus, Romania and the Balkans bear her name, often built beside springs whose water is used by the faithful for the eyes. In Romania a second Saint Paraskevi — Parascheva of Iaşi, commemorated October 14 — draws one of the largest pilgrimages in the Orthodox world.