Vincent, Sabina and Christeta

The Holy Martyrs Vincent, Sabina and Christeta were three siblings from Talavera de la Reina in Spain, martyred at Ávila in the year 304, in the persecution of Diocletian. Orphaned early, Vincent, the eldest, took care of his sisters. They are said to have been raised in the Christian faith and were known for their goodness and devotion to their neighbor. When the persecution began, the praetor Dacian, sent to Hispania, ordered the Christians of Toledo to be sought out and arrested Vincent, who refused to renounce his faith and was condemned to death. In prison his sisters visited him and persuaded him to flee, so that they would not be left orphaned and without protection; they fled and reached Ávila, where they were seized and martyred.

According to tradition, a Jew who mocked the three siblings was wrapped by a great serpent and began to suffocate, and seeing that it was a punishment for his conduct he repented; the serpent departed, the Jew became a Christian, buried the three martyrs and raised a church over their tomb. The bodies were placed in a cleft of the rock, over which a chapel and later the present basilica of San Vicente at Ávila were built. In 1062 the relics were moved to the monastery of San Pedro de Arlanza to protect them from the advance of the Muslims, and returned to Ávila in 1175, in a great sarcophagus of polychrome marble, one of the great works of Castilian Romanesque sculpture. Saint Sabina has been patron of the archpriesthood of Àger since the eleventh century, when part of the relics reached the collegiate church of Saint Peter. Their commemoration is on 27 October (new style). They are venerated in the Catholic Church.