Zoe of Rome

Saint Zoe the Martyr of Rome was a Roman noblewoman, wife of Nicostratus, a high court official, who suffered in the time of Diocletian, around 286. She is commemorated on 5 July, and by the Orthodox Church also on 18 December, with her husband and with Saint Sebastian and other martyrs.

For six years she had been unable to speak and had found no healing. One day, accompanying her husband to the emperor's prisons, where the Christians Mark and Marcellian were held, she saw Saint Sebastian encouraging them not to lose their faith. A divine light settled on the saint's head and lit the whole prison. Zoe knelt before him, and Sebastian, after asking God's help, made the sign of the cross over her lips and gave her speech back, and she glorified Jesus and asked for baptism. She and her husband became Christians, with other pagans who had seen the wonder. Zoe had great devotion to the Apostle Peter. Going to pray at his tomb, she was found by the praetorian guards, bound and cast into prison. She received martyrdom by being hung from a tree with a fire beneath, and died stifled by smoke. Her body was thrown into the Tiber. Her relics are kept in the basilica of Santa Prassede in Rome.