Dionysia

Saint Dionysia, Martyr, was a native of Anatolia and was among the victims of the persecution of Decius at Lampsacus, where she died in 250 or 251, at sixteen years old, according to the account. She is venerated as a saint and martyr by the Catholic Church, together with the martyrs Peter, Andrew and Paul. Her commemoration is on 15 May.

In the time of the emperor Philip the Arab Christians were tolerated; his successor, Decius, persecuted them violently. The proconsul Optimus was responsible for numerous martyrdoms, among them those of Andrew, Paul and Nicomachus. Nicomachus, put to torture, denied the faith and was invited to sacrifice to some pagan gods, but at the moment of the sacrifice he fell to the ground in convulsions and died. Dionysia, a girl, saw this and cried out, weeping, that Nicomachus had risked eternal life for those brief moments of earthly life. She was arrested. Threatened by the proconsul Optimus, the young girl answered that her God was far more powerful than he. She was given to soldiers to be raped, but they said that they had been miraculously prevented. When Paul and Andrew were taken out of prison to be put to death, Dionysia managed to escape from her prison and, reaching their bodies, said: "I would have wished to share your sufferings in my heart, so that I might share your glory in heaven." In the end she was beheaded at Lampsacus.

Her relics were taken in 1922 to the abbey of Flône in Belgium and placed in a wax statue representing the saint's body; among the relics was a vial containing her crystallized blood. On the sarcophagus is a marble slab, perhaps from the Roman catacombs, with the inscription: Dionysia, virgin and martyr, lived 29 years, rests in peace.