✝ Holy Martyrs Susanna the Virgin and Companions
August 11 / August 24 (Julian Calendar)
On this day, August 11 according to the Julian Calendar (August 24 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates the Holy Martyrs Susanna the Virgin and those with her: Gaius, Pope of Rome, Gabinus the Presbyter, Claudius, Maximus, Prepedigna, Alexander and Cutias.
The holy martyr Susanna the Virgin was the only daughter of the Roman presbyter Gabinus, a kinsman of the emperor Diocletian (284–305). Her parents raised her in piety and gave her a deep education in the various secular sciences as well.
When praise of the virgin — adorned with many virtues, wise and beautiful — reached the ears of the emperor, he resolved to give her in marriage to Maximian Galerius (according to another account, to his co-ruler Maximian Herculius). The virgin refused, for from her youth she had dedicated herself wholly to the Lord. Diocletian then advised Maximian to use force against her.
Inflamed with impure passion, Maximian came to the blessed one by night. He did not scruple to approach her as she stood at prayer, but the vision of a radiant angel of the Lord above Saint Susanna so terrified him that he rushed at once from the room, ran to the palace, and told Diocletian what he had seen.
Enraged still further, the ruler sent to the handmaid of the Lord a cruel executioner named Macedonius. The impious man demanded that she venerate the idols, and when he received a firm refusal in reply, he first beat her mercilessly with rods and then ran her through with a sword.
A short time after Susanna’s martyric end, her father Gabinus and her uncle Gaius, Pope of Rome (283–296), were also martyred for Christ.
Saint Claudius and his brother Maximus were close kinsmen of Diocletian. Through their association with the pious household of Gabinus the brothers came to know the true God, and together with Claudius’s wife Prepedigna and their sons Alexander and Cutias they were baptized. The God-hating autocrat seized them and exiled them to Ostia, near Rome. There the tormentors burned the saints in fire and scattered their ashes upon the sea.
The incorrupt relics of blessed Susanna and of her father are preserved in Rome, in the church dedicated to the holy virgin martyr; the relics of the holy Pope Gaius likewise repose in Rome, in the church that bears his name.
May the intercessions of Holy Martyrs Susanna the Virgin and Companions be with us all.