Venerable Martyr
Venerable Martyr Eudocia of Heliopolis
датировка спорна (традиционно ок. 107; по ряду источников II в., возможно позднее)
Also known as: Евдокия Самаряныня
Venerable-Martyr Eudocia of Heliopolis — a former Samaritan courtesan converted by overhearing a Scripture reading, who was baptized, became a nun and abbess, and was beheaded on a false charge.
Venerable-martyr Eudocia was a Samaritan by birth who lived in the Phoenician city of Heliopolis (modern Baalbek); renowned for her beauty, she lived as a wealthy courtesan.
Overhearing the monk Germanus reading Scripture about the Last Judgment through the wall of her garden, she was struck with compunction and resolved to abandon her old life. She gave away her fortune to the poor, was baptized by Bishop Theodotus, and entered a women's monastery, where she spent many years in ascetic labor, eventually becoming abbess and receiving a gift of healing and wonderworking.
When a Roman governor learned of her unwavering faith and the many conversions she inspired, he had her arrested on false charges. After torture, she was beheaded.
Her feast is kept on March 1/14.
HONEST DATING CAVEAT: her hagiography survives in several differing, sometimes contradictory, recensions; it is traditionally placed under Emperor Trajan (98–117), but modern scholars have noted anachronisms in the text (women's monasteries and an episcopal see at Heliopolis are only reliably attested much later) and do not rule out a later origin for the tradition.