Markella of Chios

The holy martyr Markella of Chios is a maiden of the island of Chios, canonized by the Church of Greece, who has always enjoyed special veneration on the island. Her memory is kept on 22 July (4 August in the new style). There is no sure and ancient information about her life, and the story told today took shape only in the nineteenth century.

What the sources say

The synaxaria of 1810 and 1868 knew nothing of her life and martyrdom and gave only a few facts about her cult at Chios. Leo Allatius mentions her in 1648, without saying who she was. In the 1860s her date of birth appears for the first time, around 1500, which does not agree with the account of Allatius, born in 1586, who seems to know little about her, though memories of her life would still have been fresh. So it is thought that the events of her life go further back in time. According to the tradition begun in the nineteenth century, she was born and lived at Volissos in Chios, under Genoese rule, in the fourteenth century.

The story according to tradition

She was raised a Christian by her mother, while her father was, in some accounts, a pagan. Left without a mother at a tender age, she continued to read Scripture and pray to God. About the age of eighteen she had to flee her father's fury. Different reasons are given. According to one version, her mother had been Christian and the father an idolater who tried hard to force his daughter to become an idolater too; this seems anachronistic, since by the fourteenth century paganism had long been extinct in Greece. According to another, her father was seized by a vile passion for her, and the girl fled in horror when he showed his intentions.

Whatever the reason, Markella fled into the nearby mountains and hid in a bush. The father found her with the help of a herdsman and they set the bush on fire to force her out. She ran toward the sea, but the father aimed his bow at her and wounded her with an arrow. The people believe that the saint's blood stained the rocks and that even today, at her feast, at a certain hour, the blood becomes visible on the rocks to all the faithful who bear witness to this miracle. Wounded, she prayed to Jesus Christ that the rocks might open and hide her; the rock opened and received her whole body, but not her head. The father cut off her head and threw it into the sea. The head floated to the beach of Komi.

For many years the locals could not find the head, until one day an Italian warship, probably Genoese, was in the neighbourhood. In the evening the sailors saw a bright light from the distance and, coming near, saw a head floating on the water, lit by upright floating candles. They understood at once that this was a holy miracle and took the saint's head to their homeland. Local tradition also says that holy water springs from the rocks that mark the place of her martyrdom. Many pilgrims come there each year on 22 July for the commemoration services; it is said that, if the pilgrim's faith is strong, the water in the rock pool feels very warm to the touch.

Veneration

Today a church stands on the cave of Saint Markella. The rock where she was killed is said to spring holy water. On her feast day the sea is said to boil. Her icon is among the most revered and is held to be miraculous, and the feast is celebrated with a great festival at the Holy Shrine of Saint Markella at Chios. Her troparion calls her the rose of piety and the sprout of Chios, cut down by her father's hand while she kept the commandments of Christ. The Serbian Church tells that the father wanted to live with his daughter as with a wife and in fury cut her to pieces, and that near the church there are stones that from time to time become bloody; people take them, pray to the saint and lay them on the sick, who are healed.