Vasa

Holy Martyr Vasa was the wife of a pagan priest and lived at Edessa in Macedonia with her sons Theognis, Agapius and Pistus. Raised in Christian piety, she taught her sons love for Christ too. In the time of the emperor Galerius (305-311) her husband denounced her and her sons to the governor. Those who hoped in the Savior refused, despite threats, to sacrifice to the idols. Then they began to torture the sons before their mother: the eldest, Theognis, was hung up and torn with iron hooks; the boy Agapius was flayed from head to chest; then they came to the youngest, Pistus. The mother encouraged them and urged them to bear the torments for Christ without complaint. In the end the sons were beheaded (by one tradition at Edessa in Macedonia, by another at Larissa in Thessaly).

Vasa was shut in prison and left hungry, but an angel fed her with heavenly food. Then many torments fell upon her: the executioners tried to burn her, then to drown her, and threw her to beasts, but, kept by the grace of the Holy Spirit, she remained unharmed. When she was taken into the prison she smashed the statue of Zeus into pieces. She was thrown into the sea, but unexpectedly a boat came and three radiant youths lifted her onto it (the venerable Nicodemus the Athonite thought the youths were her sons, who had departed this world before her). After eight days the blessed mother came from the boat to the island of Alon, near Cyzicus. The local ruler demanded that she sacrifice to the idols and, receiving a firm refusal, beat her with rods and then ordered her beheaded. The Church of Georgia commemorates her, together with her sons, on 21 August (old style; 3 September new style).