Fr Flader, my name is Natalia and I was wondering whether there is a St Natalia. Can you help me?
There is a St Natalia and she is commemorated along with her husband St Adrian, a martyr of the early fourth century. Natalia had become a Christian and was married to Adrian, a Roman who was the head of the praetorium of the emperor in Nicomedia. She kept her Christian faith a secret, since the emperor had promised a reward to whoever would inform on Christians and bring them to trial.
Nicomedia was an ancient city founded by the Greek king Nicomedes and located in what is now Turkey. In 286AD it became the Eastern and most senior capital city of the Roman Empire, serving as one of the principal residences of the Roman emperor. It is the present Turkish city of Izmit, a port on the sea of Marmara, East of Istanbul.
There is some uncertainty about which Roman emperor was involved, but it was most likely the emperor of the East, Gaius Galerius Valerius Maximianus. Known as Galerius, he was emperor from 293 to 311, serving as the eastern Augustus in Diocletian’s Tetrarchy, when there were four emperors serving concurrently in different parts of the empire.
Our information on St Natalia and St Adrian comes from St Nicodemus (1749-1809), a Greek monk, mystic, theologian, and philosopher, who lived an ascetical life in the monastery on Mount Athos. He is venerated as a saint by the Eastern Orthodox Church. He bases his account on a Greek manuscript in the Great Lavra on Mount Athos.
According to his account, St Natalia’s husband Adrian was examining a group of Christians who had been sentenced to death. When he asked them why they were willing to suffer torture for their faith, they answered that they were suffering in order to gain the good things prepared by God for those who suffered for his sake, “which neither eye has seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man” (1 Cor 2:9).
When he heard this, Adrian was so struck that, moved by divine grace, he told the Roman officials with him to write his own name along with those of the rest of the Christians to be martyred. When his wife Natalia heard that he had been imprisoned with the other Christians, she ran with joy to the jail and praised his resolve, embracing his chains. After asking the other Christians to pray to God for her husband, she returned home.
When the time for martyrdom drew near, Adrian bribed the guards to release him temporarily and then he went home to tell Natalia that his time had come. When she saw him coming, she assumed that he had denied Christ, and so she refused to open the door, rebuking him as a coward. But when she learned the true reason for his release, she changed her tone to one of encouragement and accompanied him to the tribunal.
When Adrian appeared before the emperor and professed his faith in Christ, he was beaten severely, after which he was stretched on the ground and given a second beating, which tore open his stomach, exposing his entrails. His hands and feet were then cut off. It is not clear if he died from these injuries, or if he was then beheaded to hasten his death. When the others were martyred, Natalia encouraged them strongly, giving them courage to remain faithful until the end.
The bodies of the martyrs were then taken to be burned, but Natalia managed to obtain one of her husband’s severed hands from the pile. Guarding it as a precious relic, she kept it in her cloak and even anointed herself with the blood. According to the tradition, the fire that was to burn the bodies was miraculously put out by a sudden shower of rain, and a Christian named Eusebius was able to retrieve the relics and take them by ship to be buried in Argyroupolis, a town near Byzantium.
Soon after his death, Adrian appeared to Natalia in a dream, telling her that she would soon be at rest in the Lord, which happened just as he predicted. She and her husband are both venerated as martyrs and they are the patron saints of married couples. Their feast day is celebrated on 26 August.
