Anastasia | |
|---|---|
 Modern Orthodox Christian icon of Saint Anastasia the Holy Great-Martyr | |
| Virgin and martyr | |
| Born | 281 AD Rome |
| Died | December 25 A.D. 300 Pannonia Secunda (modern Serbia) or Palmaria |
| Venerated in | Catholic Church Oriental Orthodox Churches Eastern Catholic Churches Eastern Orthodox Church |
| Canonized | Pre-Congregation |
| Major shrine | Cathedral of St. Anastasia, Zadar |
| Feast | December 25 (Catholic) December 22 (Greek Orthodox) September 28 (Syriac Orthodox)[1] |
| Patronage | Pharmacists, Doctors, apothecaries, healers |
Saint Anastasia (died December 25 A.D. 304) is a Christian saint and martyr who died at Sirmium in the Roman province of Pannonia Secunda (modern Serbia). In the Eastern Orthodox Church, she is venerated as St. Anastasia the Pharmakolytria, i.e. "Deliverer from Potions" (Ἁγία Ἀναστασία ἡ Φαρμακολύτρια).[2] This epithet is also translated as "One who Cures (Wounds)" in Lampe's A Patristic Greek Lexicon.[3]
Concerning Anastasia, little is reliably known, save that she died in the persecutions of Diocletian;[4] most stories about her date from several centuries after her death and make her variously a Roman or Sirmian native and a Roman citizen of patrician rank. One legend makes her the daughter of a certain Praetextatus and the pupil of Saint Chrysogonus. Catholic tradition states that her mother was St. Fausta of Sirmium.
Anastasia has long been venerated as a healer and exorcist. Her relics lie in the Cathedral of St. Anastasia in Zadar, Croatia.
She is one of seven women who, along with Blessed Virgin Mary, are commemorated by name in the Roman Canon of the Mass.
- ^ Curtin, D. P. (July 2015). Jacobite Arab Synaxarium- Volume I. Dalcassian Publishing Company. ISBN 9781088061237.
- ^ "St. Anastasia, the Deliverer from Potions". Antiochian Orthodox Christian Archdiocese.
- ^ G. H. Lampe, A Patristic Greek Lexicon, , Oxford (Clarendon Press), 1961, p. 1472.
- ^ Smith, Philip (1867). "Anastasia". In William Smith (ed.). Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology. Vol. 1. Boston: Little, Brown and Company. p. 158.