Barbara: Name Day and Patron Saint

St Barbara was the only daughter of Dioscorus, a wealthy pagan of Heliopolis in Syria, who shut her away in a tower to guard her beauty. Gazing on the heavens, she came to know the one Creator, and was secretly baptized by a priest who came disguised as a merchant. While her father was away she had a third window cut into his new bathhouse in honor of the Holy Trinity. When she confessed Christ, Dioscorus handed her over to torture; the Lord appeared to her in prison and healed her wounds. Her courage brought St Juliana to faith, and both were beheaded, Barbara by her own father, who was soon struck dead by lightning. Her relics rest in Kiev. Orthodox Christians pray to St Barbara above all for a good Christian death, that no one who honors her will be taken suddenly, without repentance and the Holy Mysteries.

What the faithful pray for

• a Christian end to our life, painless, unashamed and peaceful
• to receive the Holy Mysteries (Communion) before death
• strength at the hour of death through the Body and Blood of Christ
• steadfastness in faith and courage in trials
• health and the salvation of the soul
• healing in illness
• children for childless women and an easy birth (Russian/Ukrainian folk usage)

Protection

• from sudden death without repentance and Communion
• from lightning and storms
• from fire and explosions
• from enemies visible and invisible

Miracles

• Barbara had a third window built into her father’s bathhouse to confess the Holy Trinity, and traced a cross on the marble wall that was etched as if with iron. (source)
• Her father Dioscorus beheaded her himself and was then struck down by lightning, together with the governor Martianus. (source)
• Her relics, taken to Constantinople in the sixth century, were brought to Kiev in the twelfth by the Byzantine princess Barbara Komnene and still rest there. (source)

Read the life of St Barbara