St. Pelagia

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

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May 4 · Virgin, Martyr

St. Pelagia

St. Pelagia

Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Traditional feast

May 4
1914 / pre-1969 calendar, per Baring-Gould (1897)

Current feast

October 8
Secondary source · Wikipedia

Represents

Virgin
Martyr

Early life

The book says little or nothing about early life. This is how the account begins.

Thin entry · the 1897 book gives only 0 words. We have not filled the gap with invented detail.

What they represent

How they teach us to live

Drawn from themes in the original account

Learn from the kind of life it was. Faithfulness to Christ when it cost everything.

Keep their day. Remember them on May 4 with a short prayer, and ask for their help.

Read more

The full original · 0 words

Read Baring-Gould’s full account

Baring-Gould’s sources: Greek Mensea and Menologium, and Modern Roman Martyrology. Authority Her Greek Acts, which are utterly untrustworthy, being a religious romance, only possibly founded on facts.] Pelagia was a young girl living at Tarsus in the reign of Diocletian; seeing Christians martyred, she desired to hear somewhat of their faith, and having seen in a dream a bishop baptizing, she asked permission of her mother to visit her nurse, who she believed was a Christian. The mother gave her consent, and the old nurse instructed her in the faith and brought her to the bishop, Clino, who baptized her, and communicated her. She thenceforward refused to marry the son of Diocletian, who was desperately in love with her.1 The poor young man committed suicide when he found his suit was vain, and Diocletian, highly incensed, ordered Pelagia to be enclosed in a brazen bull over a fire.

Feast days

Feast: October 8
Traditional: May 4

Nine days · Free

Pray the novena
with us.

One short email a day for nine days. The day's prayer, a line from St. Pelagia's story, and a nudge to keep going.

Also on May 4
St. Judas or Quiriacus

St. Judas or Quiriacus

May 4 · Bishop
S

St. Sylvanus of Gaza

May 4 · Bishop, Martyr
M

St. Monica

May 4 · Widow
← All 1726 saints in the library
Sources & notes

Feast-day sources

Sources

Credits

Image: Saint pelagia.jpg · Richard de Montbaston et collaborateurs · Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain.

Image: Richard de Montbaston et collaborateurs, Wikimedia Commons (Public domain)

From Sabine Baring-Gould, The Lives of the Saints, new edition in 16 vols. (London: John C. Nimmo, 1897–98); text from the Internet Archive scan (OCR, lightly cleaned; errors possible). Public domain in the United States. Reproduced unedited, except for short bracketed notes in grey that we added to explain names and terms (“S.” is the old abbreviation for Saint). Some history and judgments reflect 19th-century scholarship.