Taisia

Holy Martyr Taisia was one of the five Christian virgins who buried the bodies of martyrs and were burned in a copper-⁠smelting furnace in the time of Emperor Trajan, together with his daughter Drosis.

Trajan (98-117) renewed in 99 a law forbidding secret societies, which indirectly touched Christians, and in 104 issued a law specifically against them, the persecution continuing to the end of his reign. The bodies of slain Christians often remained unburied, to frighten the rest. Five Christian virgins, Aglaida, Apollinaria, Daria, Mamphusa and Taisia, took upon themselves the labour of burying them: they secretly carried off the bodies of the martyrs, anointed them with perfumes, wrapped them in shrouds and buried them. Learning of it, the princess Drosis, a secret Christian not yet baptized, asked them to take her with them. On the advice of her betrothed, the official Adrian, a guard was set beside the slain. On the first night Drosis and the five virgins were seized. Trajan recognized his daughter among the prisoners and ordered her kept apart, hoping she would change her mind. The other virgins were sentenced to be burned in a copper-⁠smelting furnace; they received death bravely and won the crowns of martyrdom. From the copper mingled with the ashes of the martyrs, tripods were made for Trajan's new bath, but as long as they stood there no one could enter: whoever crossed the threshold fell dead. The priests understood why and advised that they be removed. Then Adrian proposed that they be melted down and made into five statues of naked maidens, like the martyrs, to be set before the bath as an insult. Trajan agreed. When the statues were set up, the emperor saw in a dream five pure lambs grazing in paradise and a shepherd who said to him: "Most lawless and impious of emperors. Those whose images you meant to set up for mockery the Good and Merciful Shepherd has taken from you and settled here, where in time your daughter Drosis, the pure lamb, will come as well." Waking, Trajan fell into a rage and ordered two huge furnaces lit. On them was posted the imperial command: "You Galileans, who bow to the Crucified, spare yourselves many torments and us our labour: sacrifice to the gods. If you do not wish, let each of you cast himself into this furnace." Many Christians went willingly to the torment. Learning of it, Drosis resolved to receive death as well. In prison she prayed that she might go out unnoticed, and the guards fell asleep. Out, she made for the furnace, but reflected that she lacked the wedding garment, that is, Baptism, and prayed: "King of kings, Lord Jesus Christ, for You I left my royal estate, that You might count me worthy to be at least a doorkeeper in Your Kingdom; baptize me Yourself with Your Holy Spirit." Then she anointed herself with the holy chrism she had taken, immersed herself three times in water and said: "The servant of God Drosis is baptized in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." For seven days she hid in fasting and prayer; on the eighth day she went to the blazing furnace and threw herself into the fire.

Taisia is commemorated on 4 April, in the new style; she is not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church.