Syra of Troyes

Syra of Troyes (in French Syre) is a saint of Irish origin, the sister of Saint Fiacre, a nun in France who reposed around the year 640 at Meaux but is venerated chiefly at Troyes. Her story has been merged with that of a woman named Syria who lived at Troyes in the 4th or 5th century.

According to the accounts preserved by Alban Butler and John O'Hanlon, Syra left Ireland after her brother and came to France, where she applied to Saint Faro, bishop of Meaux. He entrusted her to his sister Fara, abbess of a monastery in Brie. Under her guidance Syra became a model of humility, meekness, charity and prayer, and from her cell she passed to heaven in the 7th century. A later version says that she was the daughter of a Scottish king, that she received from God the gift of blindness to escape suitors, and that she regained her sight in France.

She is commemorated at Troyes and in some parts of Ireland on 8 June, and at Meaux on 23 October; the Bollandists hold that the proper day is 23 October. Her story rests on late sources.