Nymphe of Palermo

Holy Martyr Nymphe of Palermo is a legendary martyr, one of the four original patron saints of the city of Palermo, living, according to the story, between the fourth and the sixth centuries. She is remembered on 10 November, and at Palermo also on 19 August. Our sources show no Orthodox veneration and do not agree on her life: they speak of two or more traditions, one of which places her death at Rome in the year 316.

The accounts

There are several legendary versions of her life. According to one, Nymphe was the daughter of Aurelian, prefect of Palermo, in the time of the emperor Constantine, that is at the beginning of the fourth century. Her turning to the Lord is linked with the name of Saint Mamilian, bishop of Palermo. According to tradition, to stop his daughter from baptism, Aurelian seized some two hundred Christians, among them Mamilian, and tortured them. A holy angel brought the tortured out of prison and led them to the seashore. There they found a boat in which they set out north and reached the island of Giglio. On that island they spent some time in solitude and prayer. Later, wishing to visit the tombs of the holy apostles Peter and Paul, Nymphe and Mamilian went to Rome. There, shortly after visiting the tombs, Mamilian died. He asked to be buried on the seashore, not far from a village called Bucina. A year later, on 10 November, after a long famine, Nymphe also died. She was buried in the same crypt as her teacher. The local people, suffering from drought, asked her to intercede with God for rain. The miracle they needed took place, and the people there began to venerate her as a saint.

According to another tradition, Nymphe was a young girl put to death for the faith in Christ at the beginning of the fourth century. According to another, Nymphe lived in the sixth century, fled from Sicily from the Arian Goths who had taken the island and died at Savona. It may be that there were two saints of the same name.

Veneration

The name of Saint Nymphe is often mentioned together with those of other saints, which has led to misunderstandings. According to the Roman Martyrology, edited by Cardinal Cesare Baronio (1586), Nymphe is remembered on 10 November together with Saints Tryphon and Respicius. The first mention of her is in a document of Pope Leo IV (847 to 855), which speaks of a church of the Holy Martyr Nymphe at Porto. Then, in 1113, the saint's relics are placed in the Roman church of San Trifone, in Piazza Fiammetta, then in 1123 in San Crisogono and, finally, in 1116 in the cathedral of Palestrina (the dates in the source are out of order). At the end of 1593 the saint was venerated in the Roman church of Santa Maria in Monticelli, where her relics had been moved in 1098, in the time of Pope Urban II.

Her veneration in southern Italy dates from 5 September 1593, when a silver urn with the head of the holy virgin was brought to Palermo, her native city. The holy relic was received with honour by the city senate and placed in the altar of the cathedral, where she was venerated anyway from 1483. The transfer of the urn from the Roman church of Santa Maria in Monticelli to her native city was made possible by the zeal of the Countess of Olivares. At Palermo, Nymphe was chosen, together with four other holy virgins, Rosalia, Agatha, Olivia and Christina, as patron of the city. From Palermo the veneration spread through all Sicily, especially in the province of Trapani, through the care of Baron Luigi Arias Giardina (1605). Until the liturgical reform of the Second Vatican Council, the commemoration of Saint Nymphe was held on 10 November. After the Council her name was removed from the new edition of the Calendarium Romanum (1969), so her commemoration on 10 November is no longer obligatory in all dioceses of the Catholic Church. At Palermo her commemoration is held also on 19 August, the day of her flight from Sicily.