St. Apollonia
Feast day: Feb. 9
St. Apollonia was a virgin martyr who died for refusing to renounce her faith in the first half of the third century in Alexandria, Egypt. A daughter of a civil servant, she received a comprehensive intellectual education and is thought to have converted to Christianity as a child on learning that her mother had asked for the Blessed Virgin Mary’s prayers to conceive her. According to the account of Dionysus, the bishop of Alexandria, she ardently began preaching the Christian faith at an early age and was likely a deaconess held in high esteem in the Church.
Trouble for St. Apollonia heightened when she mocked those who tried to get her to renounce her faith. In A.D. 249, during festivities commemorating the founding of the Roman Empire, a mob carried out a series of attacks on local Christians, and the authorities made no attempt to subdue their violence. St. Apollonia did not flee the persecution, but stayed in the city to try and comfort other Christians. In the middle of the mayhem, she was seized and her face repeatedly beaten until all her teeth were knocked out — an attempt to silence her preaching both symbolically and literally.
St. Apollonia was arrested and taken to a place beyond the city gates and ordered to blaspheme and renounce her faith in Jesus Christ. Though aware that her refusal to do so would lead to her being burned alive, she refused to recant. After making the sign of the cross, she threw herself into the fire and burned to death, likely also to preserve her chastity. The details of her death were recounted by Bishop Dionysus in a letter addressed to Fabius, the bishop of Antioch, as preserved in extracts of “The History of the Church” by Eusebius.
She was initially venerated in Alexandria and eventually in the West, and her feast day is observed by both Catholics and Orthodox Christians. In medieval times, St. Apollonia was often pictured in the Book of Hours and other devotional works as a young woman having her teeth removed by pincers or holding a pair of tongs. Several of these medieval images are preserved in the British Library in London. A 16th-century church dedicated to her in Rome no longer exists, but the small square in which it stood is still called the Piazza Sant’ Apollonia. Her intercession is commended for toothaches.
Reflection
My Lord and my God, have mercy on those who persecute your people proclaiming the Gospel. Give me the strength to be true to your Word always.
Prayer
Almighty ever-living God,
by whose gift blessed Apollonia fought
for righteousness’ sake even until death,
grant, we pray, through her intercession,
that we may bear every adversity for the sake of your love
and hasten with all our strength towards you who alone are life.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son,
who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
God, for ever and ever.
