Engratia of Saragossa

Holy Martyr Engratia of Saragossa (Encratis, Engracia) is a virgin who suffered terribly for the right faith at Saragossa in Spain, in 304 (by other opinions in the persecution of Valerian, 254 to 260). She was a native of Braga and had been promised in marriage to a nobleman of Roussillon, who sent as her escort to Gaul her uncle Lupercius and sixteen noblemen, with a servant, Julia. Reaching Saragossa, they learned of the persecution by the governor Dacian, in the time of the emperors Diocletian and Maximian. Engratia tried to dissuade him, but was whipped and imprisoned when it was discovered that she was a Christian. She was bitterly tortured, but, though counted a martyr, she survived her torments. The poet Prudentius, a native of Saragossa, wrote a hymn in honour of these martyrs, lists their names and describes the tortures Engratia suffered.

Dacian, to detect all the faithful of Saragossa, ordered that freedom of worship be promised them if they went out of the city at a fixed hour by designated gates; as soon as they had gone out, they were put to the sword and their bodies burned. Their ashes were mixed with those of criminals, so that no veneration might be paid them, but a shower of rain washed them apart and formed the ashes of the martyrs into white masses, the holy masses, preserved in the crypt of the church of Saint Engratia. These are also called the Countless Martyrs of Saragossa. Among them, besides Engratia, are Lupercius and Julia, Caius and Crescentius (confessors, imprisoned and tortured but not killed), Successus, Martial, Urban, Quintilian, Publius, Fronto, Felix, Cecilian, Evodius, Primitivus, Apodemius and four men all named Saturninus. Engratia was declared patroness of Saragossa in 1480; her cult spread through Spain and the Pyrenees. The church of Santa Engrácia in Lisbon bears her name. She is a saint of the undivided Church, commemorated on 16 April (new style; 29 April in the old style).