Holy Virgin Martyr Sira of Persia (†558) — August 24 / September 6 (Julian Calendar)

On this day, August 24 according to the Julian Calendar (September 6 civil calendar), the Georgian Orthodox Church commemorates Holy Virgin Martyr Sira of Persia, who suffered for Christ in the year 558.

Holy Virgin Martyr Sira lived in Persia in the sixth century. She was the daughter of a renowned fire-worshipping priest of Elymais. Her father entrusted Sira to a priestess to be brought up. From her the maiden learned the false science of the magi and became a priestess of the fire temple. Once, while conversing with a Christian woman, the blessed one came to believe in the truth of the Saviour’s teaching and began to live a Christian life: she learned the prayers and the psalms, kept the fasts, and little by little came to know the Holy Scriptures and the Christian faith.

Time passed, and Sira fell ill. She went to a Christian church and asked the priest to give her a little dust from the church, hoping that it would heal her. The priest knew the holy maiden as an idolater and sent her away with a refusal. Deeply convinced of her own unworthiness, Sira was not in the least angered; on the contrary, she was filled with even greater hope and, with faith, touched the priest’s vestment, as once the woman with the issue of blood had touched the hem of the Saviour’s garment (Matthew 9:20–22), and she was healed at once. Those close to the blessed one saw her attachment to Christianity and tried in every way to hinder her. They asked Sira’s stepmother to make her give up this intention. The stepmother deceived the saint, claiming that she too was a secret Christian, and told her to carry the true faith in her heart while outwardly continuing to worship fire, since she might not be able to endure torture and might then renounce Christianity. The maiden began to waver: should she be baptized and openly confess Christ, or remain as she was, a priestess in deed and a Christian in heart? In this spiritual struggle the Lord Himself appeared to the saint. Astonished by the miraculous vision, Sira made her final choice: she went to the bishop and asked for baptism. The hierarch postponed the fulfilment of the maiden’s desire, fearing to give the magi a pretext for persecuting the Christians, and thinking that the daughter, frightened by her father’s wrath, might even deny Christ. He advised Sira first to confess her faith openly before her relatives.

One day, during the morning sacrifice, Saint Sira extinguished the fire that the Persians called their god, destroyed the altar, and declared aloud that she was a Christian. Her enraged father beat the saint terribly and threw her into prison. The next day her father tried to win his daughter back with flattery and gifts, but the saint’s resolve was unshakable. Then her father handed the holy martyr over to the chief priest and the governor. The martyr was tortured for a long time in the dungeon, but, strengthened by the Lord, her hope in the Saviour did not weaken in the least. Once Sira bribed the guards of her cell, went to the bishop, and was baptized. Exhausted by her tortures, the saint fell mortally ill. She implored the Lord not to let her die of illness but to make her worthy of the crown of martyrdom. God heard her prayer and miraculously healed her. When the guard and the warden of the prison saw the maiden restored to health, they resolved to violate her, but heavenly punishment was not slow to follow: one was struck down with illness, and the other breathed his last. It was decided that Saint Sira should be strangled.

The death sentence was carried out with particular cynicism and cruelty: from time to time they loosened the rope and asked the martyr whether she had changed her mind and wished to remain among the living. The dying lamb of Christ answered with a refusal and asked them to hasten the execution of the sentence. Sira’s body was thrown to the dogs to be torn apart, but they did not touch the holy relics. Christians committed the holy body of the Lord’s faithful servant to the earth in the year 558.