Cyra of Beroea

Holy Venerable Cyra of Beroea (Macedonia), a virgin and recluse, is commemorated together with her sister, Saint Marina. The two sisters lived, according to the page, in the fourth century, in the city of Beroea in Asia Minor, and reposed around the year 450.

Their parents were wealthy and of noble birth. When they came of age, the sisters left home and withdrew from the city. They fenced off a small corner of land, blocked the entrance with stones and clay, leaving only a small opening through which food was passed to them, and lived there under the open sky. On their bodies they wore heavy iron chains and they bore hunger: for three years they ate once in forty days.

Their former maidservants came to them, wishing to join their life of ascetic struggle. The saints placed them in a separate little house not far from the enclosure and guided them, urging them to prayer and fasting. They struggled in this way for forty years. They left their seclusion only once, to journey to Jerusalem to venerate the Tomb of the Lord. On the way they took no food until they had bowed at the holy places, and on the return they again ate nothing. They did the same once more when they travelled to the tomb of the first martyr and equal-⁠to-⁠the-⁠apostles Thekla in Isauria.

Saint Cyra is commemorated on 13 March, in the new style. The life of the two sisters is also found in the Lives of the Saints by Saint Dimitry of Rostov.