Righteous Righteous Susanna

Righteous Susanna was a pious Jewish woman of the Babylonian Exile period (6th century BC), daughter of Hilkiah and wife of a prominent Babylonian Jew, Joakim. Her story is told in the deuterocanonical thirteenth chapter of the Book of Daniel ("Susanna and the Elders"), present in the Septuagint and Church Slavonic/Synodal Bibles but absent from the Hebrew Masoretic text.

Two elders appointed as judges over the people became inflamed with lust for the beautiful and virtuous Susanna; when she refused their advances, they took revenge by falsely accusing her of adultery, a crime punishable by death. Condemned by the assembly, Susanna was vindicated when God revealed her innocence to the young Daniel, who, questioning the elders separately about the supposed circumstances of the crime, exposed their contradictory testimony; the false witnesses were put to death and Susanna was cleared.

Her story stands as a model of chastity, fidelity, and trust in divine justice. There is no separate fixed commemoration day for Righteous Susanna: she is glorified collectively among the Old Testament righteous on the movable Sunday of the Holy Forefathers, and her account is traditionally connected to the life of the Prophet Daniel (December 17 O.S.).