Palladia

Holy Martyr Palladia is one of the three women, Marciana, Palladia and Susanna, commemorated on 24 May (new style) among the martyrs gathered around the holy General Meletius.

Their memory is bound to that of the Great Martyr Meletius the General. According to the synaxarion, in the time of Emperor Elagabalus (218-222), Meletius, a soldier, was condemned together with two companions, Stephen and John: Meletius was hanged and the other two were beheaded. The idolater Serapion and the sorcerer Callinicus came to believe on seeing Meletius's endurance, and were also put to death for Christ. At the sight of these martyrdoms twelve counts and tribunes believed, together with three women (Marciana, Palladia and Susanna), two infants (Cyriacus and Christian) and a multitude that the synaxarion counts as eleven thousand two hundred and eight martyrs.

Of Palladia the synaxarion says only that she shared the martyr's death with her companions and the rest of the multitude; the verse in the synaxarion adds that the women were beaten to death with wood because they would not sacrifice to the goddess Pallas.