Antonina of Nicaea
The Holy Martyr Antonina of Nicaea
Martyr · d. c. 302 (III–IV century)
Commemorated 1 March — Martyrdom at Nicaea, 13 June — Second commemoration in OCA usage
Antonina of Nicaea (†c. 302) was a Christian woman of Nicaea in Bithynia who suffered martyrdom in the persecutions of the late third and early fourth centuries. Arrested for her confession of Christ and brought before the governor, she refused every inducement and threat to sacrifice to the idols; she was subjected to a succession of savage tortures — the rack, fire, and imprisonment — which she endured with unshaken constancy, and at last was put to death. The Church honours her among the martyrs of Nicaea and keeps her memory on March 1.
Antonina was a native of Nicaea, the Bithynian city later famous as the seat of the First Ecumenical Council, in the age of the great persecutions. The sources place her suffering under the emperor Maximian (whose reign as Augustus fell 286–305) — that is, in the Diocletianic persecution about the year 302 — though some calendars give her more broadly to the third or fourth century.
Denounced as a Christian, she was brought before the ruler of the city and commanded to renounce Christ and sacrifice to the gods. She refused, confessing Christ openly, and was given over to torture. The synaxarion tradition recounts a long ordeal borne with a maiden's courage: she was stretched and beaten, burned with fire, and cast into prison for a long season, where — the account adds — she was strengthened and healed of her wounds; brought out again and still refusing to yield, she endured further torments until she gave up her soul to God. Her body was honoured by the Christians of Nicaea, and her memory was kept in the city and passed into the calendars of the whole Church.
Feast and commemoration
Antonina is commemorated on March 1 (church date; New Calendar civil March 1; Old Calendar civil March 14), among the martyrs who share the head of the month with Eudocia of Heliopolis. Her feast falls within Great Lent, and her office is kept with the Triodion of the day. She is also commemorated on June 10, as noted above.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy ewe-lamb, O Jesus, crieth out with a loud voice: "Thee, my Bridegroom, do I long for, and seeking Thee I contend; I am crucified and buried with Thee, and I suffer for Thy sake, that I may reign with Thee; I die for Thee, that I may live in Thee: receive me as an unblemished sacrifice offered to Thee with love." At her intercessions, O Merciful One, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Antonina is depicted as a martyr — a young woman in a maiden's tunic and mantle, holding the cross of martyrdom, sometimes shown amid the instruments of her torture. No storable pre-modern icon of assured date has yet been identified for her; a suitable public-domain image is wanting.
Disputed questions
- March 1 and June 10. A Martyr Antonina of Nicaea appears in the calendar on June 10 as well, with a martyrdom account (the tortures and a casting into a lake) closely resembling this one; the two commemorations are widely taken to belong to one and the same saint of Nicaea, kept on two days, though some synaxaria treat them separately. The details of her tortures vary from manuscript to manuscript, as often with the ancient martyr-Acts. The June 10 commemoration is kept in this collection as the joint feast of Alexander and Antonina — the soldier and the virgin of Krodamon, martyred under the governor Festus — because that day's commemoration is of a pair and the passion of Alexander cannot be assigned to March 1; that entry sets out the arguments on both sides. Whether its Antonina is this Antonina of Nicaea remains undecided.
- Other martyrs named Antonina. The name is borne by other early martyrs in the synaxaria (among them an Antonina numbered with companions in Cilicia and Cappadocia); the Antonina of this day is the martyr of Nicaea.