The Seven Sleepers of Ephesus were a group of seven young Christian men who hid in a cave in hopes of avoiding the persecution of Decius in the year 250. Found and arrested, they were ordered by the pro-consul in Ephesus to renounce their faith; they refused, and were sentenced to die. Legend says that they were walled up in their hiding cave, guarded by the dog Al Rakim; when the cave wall...

Saint Paraskevi of Rome (also Parasceva) is venerated as a Christian martyr of the 2nd century. She was arrested and tortured under the reign of the Roman Emperor Antoninus Pius for her refusal to worship idols. Though he eventually released her after she performed a miracle that cured him of his blindness, she was arrested on multiple later occasions for her Christianity and was eventually...

Saint Olympiad of Constantinople, also known as Olympias, was an influential figure in the early Christian era. She was born in Constantinople and lived during the 4th and 5th centuries AD. Her exact date of birth is not known, but she died in 408 in Nicomedia, Bithynia, which is now modern-day Turkey. Olympiad was married to the Prefect of Constantinople, but tragically, her husband passed...

Born to the Roman nobility, the daughter of Antigonus, senator of Constantinople, Euphrasia was related to Roman Emperor Theodosius I who finished the conversion of Rome to a Christian state. Her father died soon after Euphrasia was born; she and her mother became wards of the emperor. When Euphrasia was only five years old, the emperor arranged a marriage for her to the son of a senator....

St. Cunegunda (or Kinga) was daughter of King Bela IV of Hungary and Mary Lascaris, and sister of St. Margaret of Hungary and Bl. Jolenta. Reluctantly married to Boleslas II of Krakow, who was subsequently King of Poland, they both made a commitment of personal continence. Their special concern was for the poor and the sick. After her husband’s death in 1279, Cunegunda sold her personal...