St. Anastasia

 

I am entering this post today, but it should have been yesterday, Christmas Day.  During the Second Mass for Christmas Day, there is a commemoration for a Saint,  Anastasia.  I didn't realize until doing some research that this is because she was martyred on the day reserved for the Birth of Our Savior, Jesus Christ.  Anyway, saving you some research.  According to our beloved Abbot Gueranger:

 

"In the midst of her celebration of this mystery of the Birth of Jesus, the Church offers us another object of admiration and joy:  it is one of her own children.  Whilst solemnizing the divine Mystery of today's Feast, she commemorates in the second Mass one of those glorious heroines who preserved the Light of Christ within their souls, in spite of all the attacks made to rob them of it.  Her name is Anastasia.  This holy widow of Rome suffered martyred martyrdom under the persecution of Diocletian, and had the privilege of being thus born to eternal life on the Birthday of that Jesus for whom she suffered death."

 

 

St. Anastasia, also known as Anastasia of Sirmium and Anastasia the Pharmakolytria or "Deliverer from Potions," is a Christian saint and martyr who suffered for Christ during the time of Diocletian's Christian persecutions.

She is one of the seven women commemorated by name in the Canon of the Mass.
The "passio," or suffering of, Anastasia tells that her father was a noble pagan named, Praetextatus and her mother was St. Fausta of Sirmium. Because her mother was a Christian, Anastasia was baptized as an infant and secretly raised with Christian values.

Following the death of her mother, Anastasia's father gave her in marriage to the pagan Publius, but she preserved her virginity.

During the persecutions of Diocletian, Anastasia visited the prisons and cared for the confessors of faith. She would feed, doctor and ransomed suffering captives. Anastasia's servant informed Publius; he locked her up and beat her.

Anastasia began secretly corresponding with her adviser, St. Chrysogonus, who had gone to Aquileia. He told her to be brave, be patient and accept the Lord's will.

After the death of her husband while he was on embassy to Persia, Anastasia distributed her property to those less fortunate and suffering.

She then set off to follow Chrysogonus to Aquileia. Chrysogonus was personally interrogated by Diocletian, but he never renounced his Faith. Chrysogonus was ordered to be beheaded and thrown into the sea.

 

After his death, Chrysogonus appeared to Zoilus, a presbyter who found his relics and foretold the martyrdoms of Ss. Agape, Chione and Irene. He asked Zoilus to send Anastasia to the three sisters as encouragement.

Nine days later, Anastasia visited the sisters just before they were tortured. After they were martyred, Anastasia buried them.

Anastasia spent her time traveling from city to city caring for Christian prisoners. She healed their wounds and relieved their pain. She was given the title "Deliverer from Potions", because she would often heal many from the effects of poisons and potions.

Anastasia was arrested in Illyricum and taken to the prefect of the district for being Christian. He tried to persuade her to deny her faith and threatened her with torture. Anastasia could not be swayed, so she was given to the pagan priest Ulpian in Rome.

He presented her with the choice between riches or suffering, luxuries or torture devices. She chose torture.

He gave her three days to reconsider. Enamored by her beauty, Ulpian decided he would defile her purity. However, once he went to touch her he was struck blind and his head burst into extreme pain. On his way to his pagan temple, he fell and died.

St. Anastasia, now free, set out to care for imprisoned Christians, along with Theodota, a pious young widow and faithful helper. After Theodota was martyred, Anastasia was caught once again.

She was ordered death by starvation and was starved for 60 days. But Anastasia was not harmed. It is said the martyred Theodota visited her and fed her during this time.

The judge decided the prisoners, including Anastasia and Eutychianus, would be killed by drowning. They all entered a boat with holes in the base, but St. Theodota appeared to them and steered the boat to shore. Once they landed, Anastasia and Eutychianus baptized 120 men.

Following yet another escape, Anastasia was taken to the island of Palmaria. She was staked to the ground with her arms and legs stretched out and burned alive.

St. Anastasia's relics were taken to Constantinople, where a church was dedicated to her. Later, a hand and her head were transferred to the Monastery of St. Anastasia near Mount Athos.
The entire account of St. Anastasia's life and tragedies are believed to be purely legendary. All that is certain is a martyr named Anastasia died for her faith in Sirmium and her memory is sacred.

 

St. Anastasia is the patron saint of martyrs, weavers, and those suffering from poison. Her feast day is celebrated on December 25, since that's the day she died.


Another take, albeit with the same conclusion.

This martyr enjoys the distinction, unique in the Roman liturgy, of having a special commemoration in the second Mass on Christmas day. This Mass was originally celebrated not in honour of the birth of Christ, but in commemoration of this martyr, and towards the end of the fifth century her name was also inserted in the Roman canon of the Mass. Nevertheless, she is not a Roman saint, for she suffered martyrdom at Sirmium, and was not venerated at Rome until almost the end of the fifth century. It is true that a later legend, not earlier than the sixth century, makes Anastasia a Roman, though even in this legend she did not suffer martyrdom at Rome. The same legend connects her name with that of St. Chrysogonus, likewise not a Roman martyr, but put to death in Aquileia, though he had a church in Rome dedicated to his honour. According to this “Passio”, Anastasia was the daughter of Praetextatus, a Roman vir illustris, and had Chrysogonus for a teacher. Early in the persecution of Diocletian the Emperor summoned Chrysogonus to Aquileia where he suffered martyrdom. Anastasia, having gone from Aquileia to Sirmium to visit the faithful of that place, was beheaded on the island of Palmaria, 25 December, and her body interred in the house of Apollonia, which had been converted into a basilica. The whole account is purely legendary, and rests on no historical foundations. All that is certain is that a martyr named Anastasia gave her life for the faith in Sirmium, and that her memory was kept sacred in that church.

The so-called “Martyrologium Sieronymianum” (ed. De Rossi and Duchesne, Acta SS., 2 November) records her name on 25 December, not for Sirmium alone, but also for Constantinople, a circumstance based on a separate story. According to Theodorus Lector (Hist. Eccles., II, 65), during the patriarchate of Gennadius (458-471) the body of the martyr was transferred to Constantinople and interred in a church which had hitherto been known as “Anastasis” (Gr. Anastasis, Resurrection); thenceforth the church took the name of Anastasia. Similarly the cultus of St. Anastasia was introduced into Roman from Sirmium by means of an already existing church. As this church was already quite famous, it brought the feast of the saint into especial prominence. There existed in Rome from the fourth century, at the foot of the Palatine and above the Circus Maximus, a church which had been adorned by Pope Damasus (366-384) with a large mosaic. It was known as “titulus Anastasix”, and is mentioned as such in the Acts of the Roman Council of 499. There is some uncertainty as to the origin of this name; either the church owes its foundation to and was named after a Roman matron Anastasia, as in the case of several other titular churches of Rome (Duchesne), or it was originally an “Anastasis” church (dedicated to the Resurrection of Christ), such as existed already at Ravenna and Constantinople; from the word “Anastasis” came eventually the name “titulus Anastasix” (Grisar). Whatever way this happened, the church was an especially prominent one from the fourth to the sixth century, being the only titular church in the centre of ancient Rome, and surrounded by the monuments of the city’s pagan past.

Byzantine Icon of St. Anastasia of Sirmium at the State Hermitage Museum, Saint Petersburg, Russia.

 

 

Within its jurisdiction was the Palatine where the imperial court was located. Since the veneration of the Sirmian martyr, Anastasia, received a new impetus in Constantinople during the second half of the fifth century, we may easily infer that the intimate contemporary relations between Old and New Rome brought about an increase in devotion to St. Anastasia at the foot of the Palatine. At all events the insertion of her name into the Roman Canon of the Mass towards the end of the fifth century, show that she then occupied a unique position among the saints publicly venerated at Rome. Thenceforth the church on the Palatine is known as “titulus sanctx Anastasix”, and the martyr of Sirmium became the titular saint of the old fourth-century basilica. Evidently because of its position as titular church of the district including the imperial dwellings on the Palatine this church long maintained an eminent rank among the churches of Rome; only two churches preceded it in honour: St. John Lateran, the mother-church of Rome, and St. Mary Major. This ancient sanctuary stands today quite isolated amid the ruins of Rome. The commemoration of St. Anastasia in the second Mass on Christmas day is the last remnant of the former prominence enjoyed by this saint and her church in the life of Christian Rome.

J.P. KIRSCH (Catholic Encyclopedia)

Saint Anastasia is the patron saint of Martyrs, Widows, Weavers, and those suffering from poison.