Martyr Agape of Thessalonica

Martyr Agape, together with her sisters Irene and Chionia, lived at the turn of the 3rd–4th centuries. Orphaned young, the sisters led a pious Christian life under the spiritual guidance of the priest Zeno, rejecting the advances of numerous suitors. Having refused to eat food sacrificed to idols before the local official Cassander, and then before Dulcitius, head of the Roman administration in Thessalonica, they were subjected to various punishments. Agape, together with Chionia, was burned at the stake the same day (304); the younger sister Irene, whom they attempted to defile in a brothel, was miraculously preserved and was later burned as well. There is also a Western (Aquileian) version of their life placing the events in Italy, but the Thessalonian tradition is historically more reliable.