Also known as Virgin-Martyr Pherbutha · Phermoutha · Pherbutha, her sister and servant
Sister of the Hieromartyr Simeon, Bishop of Seleucia, she was a consecrated virgin martyred together with her sister and servant during the persecution of the Christians under the Persian emperor Sapor.
Feast Day
April 4
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Pherbutha (also spelled Phermoutha or Pherfutha) was a consecrated virgin martyred in Persia during the persecution of Christians under the Sasanian emperor Sapor (Shapur II) in the early 4th century. She was a sister of Simeon, Bishop of Seleucia, who was himself put to death for the faith. According to the accounts, Pherbutha was martyred together with her sister and her servant.
Her death belongs to the wave of executions that followed the killing of her brother. The three women were brought to the imperial court to attend the empress, and when the empress fell ill, they were falsely accused of causing the sickness by sorcery. Pherbutha, her sister, and their servant were condemned and executed; the Orthodox Church commemorates them on April 4.
Timeline 3 moments
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c. 341Death of her brother SimeonSimeon, Bishop of Seleucia, was executed during the persecution under Shapur II, the event that drew renewed suspicion onto his surviving family.
c. 341–343Service at the imperial courtPherbutha, her sister, and their servant had been brought to the court to attend the empress. Sources note Pherbutha's beauty and a proposal that she marry to gain position, which she refused on account of her vow of virginity.
c. 341–343Accusation and martyrdomWhen the empress fell ill, the three women were accused of causing the sickness by enchantment. Found guilty of being Christians and of working magic, they were condemned and executed.
Contributions & Legacy
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Accusation and death
The accusation arose after a man whom Pherbutha had rejected, and others hostile to the Christians on account of the death of her brother, reported that the empress's illness was the result of poisoning or enchantment by the women. They were thus tried not only as Christians but as workers of sorcery against the empress.
The accounts describe a particularly brutal execution: the bodies of the condemned were sawn in two, and the portions were set up on either side of a path so that the empress might pass between them, supposedly to be healed. Their remains were afterward recovered and buried by Christians.
Sources and name variants
Pherbutha appears in the Orthodox synaxaria under the spellings Pherbutha, Phermoutha, and Pherfutha, with her feast on April 4. The same figure — the virgin sister of Bishop Simeon, accused of bewitching the queen and sawn asunder with her sister and servant — is recorded by the 5th-century historian Sozomen under the name Tarbula (also rendered Tarbo), drawing on earlier Syriac martyrdom accounts of the Persian Christians who suffered under Shapur II.
