Martyr Lucy of Syracuse

Martyr Lucy was born in Syracuse, Sicily, to a noble Christian family during the reign of Emperor Diocletian. She distributed her inheritance to the poor and took a vow of perpetual virginity. Her rejected pagan suitor, angered by her refusal and by the loss of her dowry to charity, denounced her as a Christian to the governor Paschasius.

She was sentenced to defilement in a house of ill repute; according to tradition, she was miraculously rendered immovable — neither oxen nor a crowd of soldiers could drag her from the spot, preserving her purity. She survived an attempt to burn her alive — the flames did not harm her. In the end she was killed by a sword thrust through the throat.

Her name (from Latin lux, "light") is linked to a legend about her eyes: according to one tradition, her tormentors gouged them out; according to another, she plucked them out herself to discourage an admirer who praised her gaze; in both versions her sight was miraculously restored or preserved incorrupt. She is venerated as a protector against eye diseases; a relic venerated as her eyes is kept in Naples.

She should not be confused with the Martyrs of Campania named Lucia (a group of martyrs, feast July 6/19) — a different person with a similar name.

Her feast is kept on December 13/26.

NOTE: the image previously attached to this entry (lucy_of_syracuse_1.jpg) was found on inspection to be completely unrelated — a photograph of a rural house wall with scattered family photos and a rifle, having nothing to do with the saint; it has been removed from the entry as a gross file-attachment error.