Virgin Martyr Susanna of Rome and those with her

Life and Martyrdom

According to the synaxarion, Susanna was the daughter of the presbyter Gabinus and the niece of Caius, bishop of Rome. The emperor Diocletian, to whom the family was related, heard reports of her virtue and beauty and resolved to give her in marriage to his co-emperor Maximian. He sent his kinsman, the dignitary Claudius, and then his own brother Maximus, to negotiate with the priest Gabinus.

Rather than accomplishing the match, both envoys were converted: Claudius, together with his wife Prepedigna and their sons Alexander and Cythius, accepted baptism after conversing with the devout family. When Diocletian learned of his relatives' conversion he sent them into exile, where they were burned at Ostia, not far from Rome, and their ashes were cast into the sea. Pressed to sacrifice to the idols, Susanna answered, 'I offer myself in sacrifice to my Lord,' and was beheaded by a man named Macedonius. The room in which she died was afterward consecrated as a church by Bishop Caius. Her father Gabinus and her uncle Caius also met a martyr's end, Caius dying in the year 296.

Relics and Shrines

Susanna's martyrdom is associated with a house-church in Rome: the surviving Acts relate that she was executed in her father's house, which, together with the adjoining house of her uncle, was turned into a church. The church of Santa Susanna in Rome, originally the Church of Gaius, was associated with her and bore her name by the end of the sixth century.

By tradition her relics were later translated from Braga to Santiago de Compostela by Diego Gelmirez in the early twelfth century, where she is honored as a co-patron alongside Saint James.

Historical Note

The surviving hagiography of Susanna was composed roughly between 450 and 500 and is regarded by modern scholars as of limited historical value, with several of its recorded family relations treated as legendary. While she was removed from the General Roman Calendar in the 1969 revision, she continues to be recognized as a saint and is commemorated on August 11.