Valeria of Milan

The Holy Martyr Valeria of Milan (Valeria) was, according to Christian tradition, the wife of the holy martyr Vitalis of Milan and the mother of the holy martyrs Gervasius and Protasius. She suffered in the first or second century. Her feast is on 28 April.

What is known and what tradition says

The news of her is contradictory, and the earliest mentions date from the fourth century. Some modern scholars think she may have been a character in a work of fiction mistaken for history; another version presents her as a virgin martyr. Traditionally, however, she is held to be the wife of Vitalis and the mother of Gervasius and Protasius. She is believed to have come from a noble family and to have been baptized early, among the first Christians of Milan.

Martyrdom

The reigning pope had commanded the priests of the area to organize nine decuriae, each of five men and five virgins, whose duty was to gather the bodies of Christians martyred the preceding day in the Colosseum and other places. Valeria was one of the Christians who devoted themselves to burying the martyrs. For this she was seized and, avowing herself a Christian, refused to sacrifice to the Roman gods.

According to one tradition, shortly after the martyrdom of her husband Vitalis at Ravenna, Valeria refused to join in a celebration and sacrifice to pagan gods and was severely beaten near Milan, whence she died two days later. According to another tradition, on 3 June Roman soldiers searching for Christians found Valeria; she avowed herself one of the faithful. After terrible tortures she was beheaded in the Colosseum with several other martyrs. Her remains were gathered by Christians and placed in the Catacombs of Saint Sebastian. According to a third version, on the return journey from Ravenna to Milan with her husband's body, she was seized by pagan robbers, who asked her to worship their god; she refused and was beaten to death.

Veneration

A mosaic depicting her is in the basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna. A church dedicated to her in Milan was destroyed in 1786. Part of her relics reached, in the nineteenth century, Thibodaux, in Louisiana: Canon Charles Menard, on a pilgrimage to Rome in 1867, obtained from Cardinal Patrizi part of the arm-⁠bone of Saint Valeria; the reliquary arrived at Thibodaux on 18 April 1868, at the church of Saint Joseph, at a service attended by more than four thousand people. Since then Valeria has been venerated as patroness of the town of Thibodaux and is especially invoked for protection from storms and floods. In 1916, when the church caught fire, the reliquary was among the few objects saved from the ruins.