Meletina

Saint Meletina, also called Melitina or Melissa, was a Christian maiden and martyr who, according to tradition, was beheaded at Marcianopolis in Thrace in the second century. The Church keeps her memory on 16 September. What is told of her comes from late hagiographic tradition, and the sources do not agree on where she came from.

Her witness at Marcianopolis

According to the synaxarion, Meletina lived at Marcianopolis, near present-⁠day Devnya in Bulgaria, in the reign of the emperor Antoninus Pius (138 to 161). Some Western texts say she was from Spain, others from Italy. She was a devoted Christian who preached the faith to the pagans, and tradition says that she was given the gift of working miracles and that, through her prayer, the idols of Apollo and Hercules were shattered. Many pagans turned to Christ through her words.

She was seized and brought before the governor of the city, who in the Western tradition is named Antiochus. She would not offer sacrifice. The governor handed her over to his wife and to other women of rank, hoping they would turn her from her faith, but the governor's wife and some of the women around her were converted by her instead. When the governor learned this, he gave orders to put them to death. Meletina was beheaded, and according to the Western account the governor's wife was beheaded with her.

Her relics

A Macedonian named Acacius, who was returning to his own country, took the saint's body with him, meaning to bury her in Macedonia. On the voyage he fell ill and died. The ship put in at the island of Lemnos, where the body of Meletina was buried, and Acacius was laid in a grave beside hers.

The Orthodox Church remembers her on 16 September. Her name also appears in the Roman Martyrology.