Silvia

Saint Silvia was the mother of Saint Gregory the Great, pope of Rome, and lived at Rome in the 6th century. She is venerated as a saint by the Orthodox and the Roman Church, as a patroness of pregnant women. She is a saint of the undivided Church.

Little is known of her: her birthplace is given sometimes as Sicily, sometimes as Rome. She was of a distinguished family, for her husband Gordianus, a Roman regionarius, belonged to the gens Anicia. They had two sons, one of them Gregory. Their house stood on the Clivus Scauri. Silvia was noted for piety and gave her sons an excellent education. After her husband's death, around 573, she devoted herself to religious life in a new cell beside the gate of Saint Paul, from where she sent vegetables from her garden to Gregory's monastery. Gregory the Great had a mosaic portrait of his parents made at the monastery of Saint Andrew, described by John the Deacon.

Her veneration is old: the Romans honoured her as a model Christian widow. She had a chapel in her house on the Aventine; in 645 the monks of Mar Saba in Palestine settled in that house. Pope Clement VIII entered her in the Roman Martyrology on 3 November. There is a chapel of Santa Silvia at San Gregorio Magno al Celio. Her husband Gordianus and relatives Trasilla, Emiliana and Gordiana are also venerated as saints. Her record gives her repose as 572, but Wikipedia places it around 592.

She is commemorated on 3 November, the liturgical date in the Orthodox calendar (the same day number on the old and new calendars).