St. Theodosia of Tyre

From Tyre, Lebanon, the seventeen-year-old Theodosia had made her way to Caesarea in Palestine. On Easter Day, 307, according to Eusebius, she went to the public square where a number of Christians were in chains awaiting interrogation. She congratulated them and asked to be remembered in their prayers. Seized by the guards and brought before the governor, he ordered her to sacrifice to the gods, and when she would not, he had her tortured with "cruel combs" on her side and breasts, and "she was torn on the ribs until her bowels were seen." The governor, seeing that she endured these tortures uncomplainingly, appealed to her to perform sacrifices to the gods and be released, but, according to Eusebius, she replied that she had purposely come there and spoken to the Christians under guard in the square for the express purpose of being put to death by the authorities: "Why, oh man, dost thou deceive thyself, and not perceive that I have found the thing which I prayed to obtain at thy hands? For I rejoice greatly in having been deemed worthy to be admitted to the participation of the sufferings of God's martyrs: for indeed, for this very cause, I stood up and spake with them, in order that by some means or other they might make me a sharer in their sufferings." Whereupon she was thrown into the sea.

She is remembered on April 2.