Anna

Holy Martyr Anna was a noblewoman who sold all her possessions and gave the money to the poor, and who died of the beatings she endured in the time of the struggle against the holy icons, as a witness together with Saint Stephen the New.

She received the monastic tonsure from Saint Stephen the New while he was living on Mount Auxentius in Bithynia and was sent to a women's monastery called Trichinarion ("of the hair-⁠shirt wearers"). When the iconoclasts tried to turn Stephen from venerating the holy icons, they used flattery, bribery and threats, in vain. Then they accused him of visiting the Trichinarion Monastery at night and falling into sin with the nun Anna. Although her maidservant testified against her (she had been promised freedom and marriage to a nobleman), Anna denied all guilt. The emperor's soldiers came, seized her and brought her before him, but she would not lie against Stephen. Emperor Constantine threw her into a dungeon in Constantinople.

The next day the emperor sat in a public building before an assembled crowd and had Anna brought in. Since she insisted that both she and Stephen were innocent, he had her stripped naked in the sight of all. During the questioning she remained silent, and her maidservant falsely swore that Stephen had sinned with her mistress. Angered by her silence, the emperor had her stretched on the ground and beaten with rods by soldiers. During the torment she said: "I have never sinned with Stephen. Lord, have mercy." The emperor then ordered her imprisoned in one of the city's abandoned monasteries. There she departed to the Lord and received from Him the twin crowns of virginity and martyrdom.

The Saint is commemorated on 28 November, according to the new calendar.