A saint's day
St Barbara the Great Martyr
St Barbara was the only daughter of Dioscorus, a wealthy pagan of Heliopolis, who shut her away in a tower. Gazing on the heavens she came to know the one Creator, was secretly baptized, and had a third window cut into her father's new bathhouse in honor of the Holy Trinity. Her courage brought St Juliana to faith, and both were beheaded, Barbara by her own father, who was soon struck dead by lightning.
The dates
- Kept on
- 4 December (17 December on the Old Calendar)
- Next, New Calendar
- Next, Old Calendar
The New Calendar (the Greek, Antiochian, Romanian and Bulgarian churches, the OCA and most converts) keeps fixed feasts on the church date; the Old Calendar (the Russian, Serbian and Georgian churches, Jerusalem and Mount Athos) keeps them 13 days later. Pascha and the feasts that follow it are kept on the same day by both.
How the day is kept
Orthodox Christians, especially Russians, pray to her above all for a Christian death: that no one who honors her will be taken suddenly, without repentance and Holy Communion.
Russian tradition also honors her as protectress of the artillery; her patronage of miners, firefighters and builders comes from the West.
Her relics, brought to Kiev in the twelfth century, rest there still.
Name days
These names keep their name day on this feast: