Commemorated on December
4th
Saint Barbara was from Heliopolis of Phoenicia and lived during
the reign of Maximian. She was the daughter of a certain idolater named
Dioscorus. When Barbara came of age, she was enlightened in her pure heart and
secretly believed in the Holy Trinity. About this time Dioscorus began building
a bath-house; before it was finished he was required to go away to attend to
certain matters, and in his absence Barbara directed the workmen to build a
third window in addition to the two her father had commanded. She also
inscribed the sign of the Cross with her finger upon the marble of the
bath-house, leaving the saving sign cut as deeply into the marble as if it had
been done with an iron tool. When the Synaxarion of Saint Barbara was written,
the marble of the bath-house and the cross inscribed by Saint Barbara were still
preserved, and many healings were worked there. When Dioscorus returned, he
asked why the third window had been added; Barbara began to declare to him the
mystery of the Trinity. Because she refused to renounced her faith, Dioscorus
tortured Barbara inhumanly, and after subjecting her to many sufferings he
beheaded her with his own hands, in the year 290 A.D.
In the reign of Maximianus, the idolatrous pagans persecuted the
Christians with a cruel vengeance. This sweet girl could have saved herself and
appeased her wrathful father with a disavowal of Christ, with her lips alone if
not with her heart, but she chose to die rather than deny the Savior. All
accounts agree that on his way back from the execution of his daughter,
Dioscorus was killed by a bolt of lightning, the thunder of which rumbled from
heaven in God's answer to the perpetrator of such a vile deed. A virgin martyr
of early Christianity, Barbara's brutal end, as well as her pure life, resulted
in the subsequent outpouring of tributes which generations passed on to
generations in ever-expanding glorification until she became one of the most
popular of all saints in the Middle Ages. Countless Christians down through the
centuries have found inspiration in hearing her story told and retold in the
after-dinner conversations that have become a lost art in the welter of
technological substitutes.
A saint in the highest tradition of purity and piety, Barbara is
listed in some church branches as one of the fourteen auxiliary saints who are
sometimes referred to as holy "Helpers," but she held out so much hope for so
many of the faithful in all walks of life that she was adopted by various
segments of society as their artillerymen and firemen and just about everyone
engaged in hazardous occupations. She is regarded by some as the safeguard
against sudden death.
The purity of Saint Barbara is such that her name can be invoked
on any occasion with the assurance that her virtue is an answer to evil in any
form.
Source: The Great Horologion (Book of Hours), translated
from the Greek by the Holy Transfiguration Monastery. Also, Orthodox Saints,
Spiritual Profiles for Modern Man October 1 to December 31, by George Poulos.
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