Great Martyr Christina of Tyre

Christina was born in Tyre to the pagan governor Urban(us), who locked his beautiful young daughter in a tower filled with idols, intending her to serve as a priestess.

Contemplating the stars from her tower, she came to believe in the one Creator God, and an angel appeared to her, instructing her in the Christian faith and calling her the bride of Christ. When her father discovered she had smashed his idols and given the fragments to the poor, he had her tortured — including the cutting off of her breasts and tongue — and then thrown into the sea with a millstone, from which an angel rescued her.

Under the succeeding governor Julian, torments continued: she was sealed in a red-hot furnace for five days and emerged unharmed, and was finally killed by arrows around the turn of the 3rd century.

Her feast is kept on July 24/August 6.

IMPORTANT CORRECTION: category_gender has been corrected from the erroneous "m" to the correct "f". An alternative identification was considered and set aside — Martyr Christina of Caesarea, sister of Martyr Callista (already covered by a separate database entry, with a different feast date, February 6) — the better-known, independently attested Great Martyr Christina of Tyre was chosen instead, which also better matches the July feast month suggested by the entry's images.