Martyr Sebastiana of Heraclea

Sebastiana was an early Christian martyr remembered as a disciple of the Apostle Paul, by whom, according to the tradition, she was brought to faith in Christ. She is commemorated on September 16, and her account places her death during the reign of the emperor Domitian (81–96), in the first generation of believers who had received the Gospel directly from the apostles.

The synaxarion relates that she was first brought to trial as a Christian before a governor in Marcianopolis, in the region of Mysia. When she firmly confessed her faith, she was beaten and then cast into a heated furnace, from which the tradition records that she emerged unharmed. She was afterward sent to the city of Heraclea in Thrace, where she was sentenced a second time.

At Heraclea, by tradition, she was bound to a tree and her body lacerated with roof-tiles, and was then exposed to wild beasts, which are said to have refused to touch her. She was finally beheaded by order of the governor. Her body was cast into the sea, and the account relates that it was carried to the island of Rhodes (described as lying in Thrace, in the Sea of Marmara).