Cleopatra

Saint Cleopatra was a Christian woman of Palestine, who lived between the third and fourth centuries and died in 327. She is venerated both in the Orthodox Church and in the Roman Catholic Church. The Church commemorates her on 19 October together with her son, Saint John.

She came from a village called Edra, near Mount Tabor, in Lower Galilee. She was a contemporary of the holy martyr Varus and witnessed his suffering and execution. After the death of Varus, she took his remains to her home at Daraa, in Syria, and buried them with reverence.

Cleopatra was a widow, and her only child was a son named John. By 319 John had reached the rank of officer, a centurion, but, to her great sorrow, he died suddenly. In her grief Cleopatra turned to the relics of Saint Varus and begged the saint to give her son back. She dreamed that Varus and John appeared to her radiant, in bright garments, with crowns on their heads, and understood that the Lord had received John into the Kingdom of heaven, and was comforted.

She moved to live by the church she had built over the relics of Saint Varus and of her son. People who came to pray at the church reported miracles. Cleopatra spent the rest of her years in the service of God. She gave her property to the poor and spent her time in prayer and fasting. She died in 327. Besides Cleopatra, her son John is also venerated as a saint in Orthodoxy.