Calliope

Saint Calliope (Kalliopi), martyr, was a Christian of the third century, who suffered in the year 250, at the beginning of the persecution of the emperor Decius. She is commemorated on 8 June (21 June New Style). She is venerated in the Orthodox and the Roman Catholic Churches. About her we have no source other than church tradition.

The story

According to the tradition of the Church, at twenty-⁠one, an advanced age for that century, she had already passed the age at which most girls marry. She spent her days in devotion to her faith, with little thought to social life. The Greek source says that she was distinguished by beauty and by gifts of soul, that she rejected every proposal of marriage because she had dedicated her life to Christ and to the service and consolation of the sick and of her suffering brothers and sisters. When at last she came to marriageable age, many asked for her hand. One pagan suitor sent word that, if she rejected him in favour of another, especially a Christian, he would see to it that the pagan authorities would carry out their form of justice. Calliope did not hesitate to reject him and made it plain that she would not marry him even if he became a Christian, since such a conversion could not be genuinely sincere.

This set her still more at odds with the Romans, who saw her as rebellious, besides being a Christian in a pagan land. The rejected suitor had her brought before a magistrate, where she was accused of a variety of things, from mockery of the pagan faith to treason against the state. According to tradition, the suitor paid a parade of witnesses against her, to destroy her reputation. She was found guilty, and the rejected suitor stepped forward to offer withdrawal of the charges if she would renounce Christ and become his pagan bride. The alternative was torture, and upon further refusal death. Taken to the public square, she was bound to the post and flogged mercilessly until her clothing and flesh were in tatters. Her beautiful face was scarred with branding irons and salt was poured into her wounds, and while she still had breath she was told to renounce Christ. Remaining in the faith, she was beheaded. In art she is shown with a hot iron pressed to her breast, a sign of the branding she suffered.