Saint Euphrasia

380 - 420

March 13

Also known as:  Eupraxia
Memorial:  13 March (Roman Church); 25 July (Greek Church)

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Roman nobility, the daughter of Antigonus, senator of Constantinople. Related to Roman emperor Theodosius I who finished the conversion of Rome to a Christian state. Her father died soon after Euphrasia was born; she and her mother became wards of the emperor.

When Euphrasia when only five years old, the emperor arranged a marriage for her to  the son of a senator. Two years later, she and her mother moved to their lands in Egypt. There, while still a child, Euphrasia entered a convent; her mother died soon after of natural causes, leaving the novice an orphan.

At age twelve, she was ordered by the emperor Aracdius, successor to Theodosius, to marry the senator's son as arranged. Eurphasia requested that she be relieved of the marriage arrangement, that the emperor sell off her family property, and that he use the money to feed the poor and buy the freedom of slaves. Arcadius agreed, and Euphyrasia spent her life in the Egyptian convent.

Noted for her prayer life, and constant self-imposed fasting; she would sometimes spend the day carrying heavy stones from one place to another to exhaust her body and get her mind off temptations. She suffered through gossip and false allegations, much of it the result of being a foreigner in her house. Held up as a model by Saint John Damascene.

Born:  380
Died:  420 of natural causes
Canonized:  Pre-Congregation