Virineia of Edessa

Holy Martyr Virineia of Edessa (also called Veronica) was a daughter of the holy martyr Domnina of Antioch in Syria and suffered in the year 304, under Diocletian, together with her mother and her sister Prosdoce (Proscudia).

Their sacrifice is related by Eusebius of Caesarea. In Antioch there lived a holy woman, known for her beauty, wealth, lineage and good name. She raised her two daughters in the true faith, and they were in the flower of youth. The envious sought eagerly to find where they were hiding, and when they learned that they lived in another country, they called them by a trick to Antioch, and they fell into a snare set by soldiers. The mother, seeing that there was no escape, showed her daughters what awaited them, the most terrible being the threat of the house of shame. She told them that to give one's soul into the slavery of demons is more dreadful than any death, and she showed them the only way out: flight to the Lord. The daughters accepted the thought, wrapped themselves modestly in their cloaks, and halfway on the road asked the guards leave to step aside a little and threw themselves into the river nearby.

The saint is commemorated on 17 October, in the new style, together with her mother and sister.