Bernice, Prosdoce and Domnina

Saint Domnina and her daughters, Bernice (Berenice, Veronica) and Prosdoce, were Christian women martyrs of the time of Diocletian's persecution, honoured by the Orthodox and the Catholic Churches. Our sources place their death around 310, one around 306. They are remembered on 4 October (17 October on the new calendar). The Domnina here is not to be confused with Domnina of Syria, of the fifth century.

The accounts of their death

There are several accounts of their death. According to the Orthodox Church in America, Domnina, Berenice and Prosdoce were living as Christians at Edessa, in Mesopotamia, when the pagan husbands of Berenice and of Domnina, in the words of the account, handed them over to Syrian soldiers. The three women drowned themselves when the guards were drunk, knowing that they would be violated.

According to Eusebius, the fourth-⁠century bishop and historian, Domnina was an extremely wealthy and well-⁠known Christian noblewoman of Antioch who had two young daughters, much desired. She had raised them Christian too. She and her daughters were taken by trickery by Roman soldiers and, fearing that the soldiers would violate their purity, Domnina asked for a little time to rest under guard and then asked that her daughters drown together in a river.

Saint John Chrysostom tells it a little differently, on the basis of Eusebius's account: according to him, Domnina and her daughters drowned themselves perhaps with the help of her husband and their father. Chrysostom praised Domnina for her courage and her daughters for their obedience.

Modern scholars hold that the story, as spread through the homilies of Eusebius and Chrysostom, served to shape the Christian ideal of the wise mother, in which purity and piety matter. They are counted martyrs because they died in the time of Diocletian's great persecution, when his edicts were issued.