Domnina of Edessa

Holy Martyr Domnina of Edessa suffered for Christ in the year 304, in the time of the Emperor Diocletian, together with her daughters Veronica, also called Virinea, and Prosdoce, also called Prosdoca. According to the surviving account, they lived in Antioch of Syria.

The historian Eusebius of Caesarea relates that Domnina was a holy woman, wondrous in the virtue of her soul, known for her beauty, wealth, noble birth and good name. She had raised her two daughters in the rules of the true faith, and they were in the bloom of youth and beauty. Malicious and envious people sought to find where they were hiding. Learning that they were living in another country, they called them to Antioch by trickery, and they fell into the trap set by soldiers.

The mother, seeing that there was no escape for herself or her daughters, set before them all the horrors that were prepared for them, the most dreadful being the danger of being taken to a house of shame. She told them that neither they nor she should so much as hear of such a thing, that to give one's soul into the slavery of demons is worse than any death and any destruction, and she showed them the one way out: flight to the Lord.

The daughters were strengthened in this thought, wrapped themselves decently in their cloaks, and halfway along the road asked the guards leave to step a little aside, then threw themselves into the river beside them. Domnina followed the same way and threw herself into the river with them.

The Synaxarion commemorates the three on 17 October (new style).