Syncletica of Najran

Saint Syncletica of Najran (Negran), martyr, in South Arabia, was killed with her two daughters, together with thousands of the inhabitants of the city, by the king of Himyar Dhu Nuwas, in the year 523. She is commemorated on 6 November, which is 24 October by the old calendar.

She came of a distinguished family. Widowed early, she devoted herself to the Christian upbringing of her daughters and led a pure and virtuous life. Dunaan, a Jew who had seized royal power in the 520s, resolved to destroy the Christians in his land and began to persecute them.

Summoning Saint Syncletica with her daughters, he tried to persuade her to give up her "madness" and promised that he would take her into the retinue of his wife, but she refused. Then the ruler ordered Syncletica and her daughters to be led through the city like criminals. The women, seeing the saint's disgrace, wept, and she told them that this "shame" was dearer to her than any earthly honor.

The martyr was brought again to Dunaan, and he told her that, if she wanted to stay alive, she must renounce Christ. The saint answered: if I renounced him, who would then deliver me from eternal death? Enraged, the tormentor ordered that the heads of Syncletica's daughters be cut off first, for their faith (the eldest of them was twelve), and that she be made to drink their blood, and then that the mother's head be cut off with the sword.