St. Dimiana
Sunday, November 19, 2006
St. Dimiana
The church celebrates the feast of St. Dimiana on 13th of Toubah (21st
of January)
St. Dimiana was a chaste
virgin, the daughter of Mark, the governor of El-Borollus
and El-Zaafran. She was the only daughter born to her
parents. When she was one year old, her father took her to the church that was
in the monastery of El-Maima. He offered alms and lit
candles and oblations so that God might bless her and keep her in his care.
When she was fifteen years old her father wanted
her to marry. She refused, and told him that she had consecrated herself to
Christ. When she felt that her father was pleased with her intentions, she
asked him to build her a place where she and forty other virgins could worship
god. He built her the house she wanted and she lived in it with the forty other
virgins. They spent there time reading the Holy
Scripture and in worship.
After a certain time, Emperor Diocletian sent for
Mark, her father, to appear before him in order to worship the idols. He
refused at first, but later accepted and worshiped the idols. When Mark
returned to the governate, St. Dimiana
knew what he had transpired, she rushed to meet him. She did not greet him, but
said, “What is it that I heard? I would rather hear about your death than to
hear that you have denounced your faith and left the God that created you, to
worship gods made by hands. Take note that if you don’t return to your fist
faith, and renounce the worship of stones, you are not my father and I’m not
your daughter,” and she left him.
Her father was greatly moved by the words of his
daughter, and he wept bitterly. In haste, he went to Diocletian and confessed
the Lord Christ. When the Emperor couldn’t convince him by threats and
promises, he ordered him to be beheaded. When Diocletian knew that St. Dimiana was the cause of her father renouncing the idols,
he sent her a prince who tried gently to convince her to worship the idols, and
threatened that if she did not heed his orders, she would be beheaded. The
price went to with two hundred soldiers and some instruments of torture.
When he arrived at her palace, he said to her, “I
am a messenger sent from Diocletian. I came to call you according to the
Emperor’s orders, to worship his gods, so that he can grant you all that you
want.” The Saint shouted in his face saying, “May God denounce the messenger
and the one whom he was sent. Don’t you have any shame calling stones and wood
gods that are inhabited by devils? There is no god in heaven or on earth except
one God, the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, the eternal Creator, the
Everlasting, who is everywhere, who knows all secrets, and who can throw you
into hell where there is everlasting pain.
As for me, I am a maidservant of my Master and my
Saviour Jesus Christ, and his good Father and the Holy Spirit, to Him I confess
and upon Him I depend, and with His name I die, and by Him I live forever. The
Prince became exceedingly angry and ordered her to be placed in the human
torturing press, until her blood poured out of her body. The virgins were standing
and weeping. When they put her in prison, the angel of the Lord appeared to
her, he touched her body with her illuminated wings, and she was healed of all
her wounds. The prince used all his evil imaginations to torture he, once by scratching her body another time by putting her
in boiling oil. Through it all the Lord raised her up
safely. When the prince saw that his torture was in vain, he ordered her to be
beheaded and all of the other virgins with her. They all were granted the
crowns of martyrdom.
May the prayers of
St.Dimiana and forty virgins be with us
Glory be to God forever
Amen.
