Aquilina of Zagliveri
The Holy New-Martyr Aquilina of Zagliveri
New Martyr · Virgin · b. c. 1746 — d. 1764
Commemorated 27 September — Martyrdom at Zagliveri, 1764
Aquilina of Zagliveri (c. 1746–1764) is one of the virgin new-martyrs of the Ottoman period: a girl of the village of Zagliveri near Thessalonica whose father, having killed a Turkish neighbour in a quarrel, escaped execution by accepting Islam, while her mother raised her secretly in the faith of Christ. Pressed at eighteen to follow her father's conversion, she refused before the judge with the confession that she would never deny Christ, was beaten with rods in repeated sessions until her body was broken, and died of her wounds on September 27, 1764, at the age of about eighteen. She is commemorated on the day of her death.
A divided house
Aquilina was born about 1746 to Christian parents in the village of Zagliveri (Zagliberi), east of Thessalonica in the diocese of Ardameri, where Christians and Turks lived side by side. While she was still an infant at the breast, her father quarrelled with a Turkish neighbour and struck him dead; seized and taken to the pasha of Thessalonica to be executed for the killing, he saved his life by converting to Islam. Her mother remained a Christian and brought up her daughter in the faith, teaching her from childhood not to deny Christ, whatever her father had done.
The confession
As Aquilina grew, the Turks of the village pressed her father to bring his daughter over to Islam, and he temporised, promising to see to her conversion in due course. When she was eighteen the demand became insistent. Her father told her to convert "one day sooner, so that they stop bothering me"; she answered that she would never deny the Lord Jesus Christ who died on the Cross, and was ready for torture and death for love of Christ. Her father then gave her up to the Turks to do with as they wished. When the servants came to arrest her, her mother encouraged her to stand firm, and mother and daughter parted with tears; Aquilina asked her mother's prayers, was bound and led before the judge, while her mother was shut out in the courtyard.
Martyrdom
Before the judge Aquilina refused conversion outright. She was stripped and beaten with rods in successive sessions — the accounts describe three — the judge pausing between them to renew the demand and the girl renewing her confession, until her body was shattered and her flesh torn. When it was clear she would die, the broken girl was carried back to her mother, and died of her wounds the same day, September 27, 1764. Her mother, the accounts relate, received her with joy as a bride of Christ; at her burial a fragrance attended her relics, and the faithful of the region kept her memory from that time. She is venerated with particular devotion in the villages of the Ardameri and Thessalonica region.
Feast and commemoration
September 27 (church date; Old Calendar civil October 10), the day of her death in 1764. The commemoration belongs to the Greek tradition of the new-martyrs of the Turkish yoke and is carried by the Greek calendars and the OCA (verified live); the day's principal service remains that of the martyr Callistratus.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4
Thy lamb Aquilina, O Jesus, crieth with a great voice: Thee, my Bridegroom, do I love, and seeking thee I contend, and am crucified and buried with thee in thy baptism; I suffer for thy sake, that I may reign with thee, and I die for thee, that I may live in thee. Receive me then as a spotless sacrifice, slain with longing for thee. By her intercessions, as thou art merciful, save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Aquilina is painted in the manner of the new-martyrs: a young woman in the festive village dress of Macedonia, holding the cross of martyrdom, the rods of her passion sometimes shown; images of her are modern works of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries. No storable pre-modern or free-licensed image has been found — the saint is listed among the wanted icons.
Disputed questions
- "Of Thessalonica." Some calendars style the new-martyr "Aquilina of Thessalonica," from the region and diocese of her village; she is the same person as Aquilina of Zagliveri, and distinct from the ancient virgin-martyr Aquilina of Byblos (†293, commemorated June 13), with whom the shared name invites confusion. A Commons image search for this saint returns only images of the Byblos martyr; the identification was checked and the images rejected. She is also distinct from the Aquilina martyred with the Great-Martyr Christopher in Lycia (†c. 250, commemorated May 9).
- The Menaion's synaxarion line. The received Greek Menaion for September 27 carries the bare line "the holy martyr Aquilina, beaten to death with rods" without the "new-martyr" style or a date. The manner of death matches the 1764 martyrdom exactly, and modern Greek calendars and the OCA identify the Aquilina of this day as the new-martyr; whether an older homonymous martyr ever stood on September 27 in the Constantinopolitan synaxaria remains to be checked against Delehaye's edition in Pass 2.