The Passion of the Holy Martyr Paraskeva

Saint Paraskeva lived in the vicinity of the ancient city of Rome during the reign of Emperor Antoninus Pius. She was the only daughter of her parents, and she practiced the study of the Holy Scriptures.

After her parents died, she distributed her belongings to the poor, took up paganism, and, imitating the holy Apostles, began to go about preaching about Christ, converting many Gentiles to the true faith.

Therefore the Jews maligned her before the emperor, who ordered her to be brought before him, and after she, despite neither persuasion nor threats, did not wish to deny Christ, he ordered first to put a burning helmet on her head, and then to throw her into a copper pot filled with very boiling oil and resin, but the saint miraculously remained unharmed from all this and, having performed a miracle [In the synagogue of Nicodemus, where the story of

This miracle is described in detail to the Reverend Martyr Paraskeva.

Thrown into a cauldron with boiling oil and resin and remaining unharmed, the saint threw a heated liquid into the eyes of the curious emperor Antoninus and blinded him, and then, at his request, restored his lost sight.] , converted emperor Antoninus and his former companions to faith in Christ.

And when she was come into the city, where Asclepius the king was, she was brought before him; and when the king saw that she would not change her mind, he commanded her to be brought out of the city unto the chief of the cave, that he might tear her to pieces.

And when she was come to Tarsus, where another king reigned, she was brought before him, and preached the word of Christ; and when he had tormented her with many cruel torments, and could not make her deny Christ, he commanded her honest head to be cut off with the sword.

Her relics were seen by the pilgrim Antony in 1200 in Constantinople, and her church still exists there.