St. Anastasia the Roman

Left an orphan at three, Anastasia was brought up in a women’s monastery near Rome by its abbess, Sophia, and became a nun there. In one of the persecutions of the third century the governor Probus had her brought before him and urged her to spare her youth and her beauty, worship the gods and marry; she answered that the only youth and beauty she knew were the ones Christ gives. He had her stripped, beaten and mutilated, and at last beheaded; a Christian named Cyril, who brought her water, was beheaded for it. Sophia and two others buried her. Her right tibia is kept at the monastery of Grigoriou on Mount Athos. She is not St Anastasia the Deliverer from Potions, whose day is 22 December. Feast: October 29.