Great Martyr Marina (Margaret) of Antioch in Pisidia

The Great Martyr Marina (in Western tradition, Margaret) was born in the city of Antioch in Pisidia to the pagan priest Aedesius. Having lost her mother in infancy, she was raised by a Christian wet-nurse who secretly instructed her in the faith, and upon coming of age she was baptized, for which her father disowned her. The regional governor Olybrius, captivated by her beauty, offered to make her his wife on condition she renounce Christ — Marina refused and was subjected to brutal torment and imprisoned. According to her Life, a demon appeared to her in prison in the form of a dragon and swallowed her, but the saint, making the sign of the cross, emerged unharmed from its belly — this episode is an intrinsic part of her own original hagiography and iconography (unlike the later, symbolic "Miracle of the Dragon" of the Great Martyr George). After further torment, St. Marina was beheaded under Emperor Diocletian. She is venerated as patroness of pregnant women and those in childbirth; her Life is recorded in the Menologion of Basil II.

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