Christmas Day is all about that Jesus fellow, but for a break from the usual gold, frankincense, and myrrh, spare a thought for St. Anastasia of Sirmium — whose feast date and purported execution date December 25 also is. She’s the only Christian martyr with a Christmas celebration,* and an apt choice for the depth of winter since her name means “dawn” or “rebirth”.
Centuries of namesakes have shared that moniker, like the youngest daughter of the executed Romanov family, on the basis of the Great Martyr’s having died during the persecution of Diocletian; though this circumstance scarcely makes her unique, no less a source than the Catholic Encyclopedia avers that the ancient martyrology linking her to St. Chrysogonus “is purely legendary, and rests on no historical foundations.” (It’s possible that multiple historical Anastasias were conflated into a single legendary person.)
Despite later generations’ ignorance of what this early keeper of the faith was really about, she became associated — again, possibly thanks to nothing more sharing the same name as the facility’s local Roman matron — with an early church in Rome, the “titulus sanctae Anastasiae.” Today ruined, this was an important church in the capital of the faith during late antiquity, and helped vault St. Anastasia into the first rank of holy intercessors. She’s even mentioned by name in the Canon of the Mass.
Her celestial department protecting against potions and poisons has, today, a distinctly retro vibe about it; “the last remnant of the former prominence enjoyed by this saint and her church” is the Christmas Dawn Mass, likely the day’s most lightly-attended service at your local Catholic or Anglican parish, wherein Anastasia is invoked by name.
Cathedral of St. Anastasia in Zadar, Croatia, where the saint’s relics repose. (cc) image from Paradasos.
* In western Christendom only.
On this day..
- 1943: Four Aussie escapees, at the Hotel Tacloban
- 1973: Five for an Afghanistan coup
- 820: Not Michael the Amorian, conquer or die
- 2014: Ismai Khan Sayed, a Pakistani heroin smuggler in Saudi Arabia
- 1553: Pedro de Valdivia, founder of Santiago
- 1204: Alexios V, precipitated Byzantine emperor
- 2010: An Iranian crack trafficker
- 1017: Eadric Streona, traitorous
- 317 B.C.E.: Philip III Arrhidaeus, who succeeded Alexander the Great
- 1683: Merzifonlu Kara Mustafa Pasha, for the Battle of Vienna
- 2006: Three old men and a taxi driver
- 1989: Nicolae and Elena Ceausescu