OCT. 7: ST. JUSTINA

(Died 303)

St. Justina was born in Padua a city in the Veneto, northern Italy.

Padua was a Roman province under the rule of the Roman Emperor Diocletian (r.284-305) who had mounted some of the fiercest persecutions of the early Church especially in the East of the Empire. The inhabitants of Padua were ordered to take part in rituals and sacrifices to the Roman gods.

Justina was a devout Christian and had taken vows of chastity. She was ordered to go to the Roman temple to Minerva to worship the Roman goddess and offer her virginity as sacrifice and renounce Christianity. She refused and was stabbed to death with a sword.

St. Justina is the patron of Padua. She is represented in christian art crowned as a princess, and with a sword in her bosom, in accordance with her martyrdom.

Adapted by A.J. Valentini