Holy Martyrs Susanna the Virgin and Those with Her: Gaius, Pope of Rome, Gabinius the Presbyter, Claudius, Maximus, Praepedigna, Alexander and Cuthias (+295–296)
The holy Martyr Susanna the Virgin was the only daughter of Gabinius, a Roman presbyter and a kinsman of the Emperor Diocletian (284–305). Her parents brought up the blessed one in piety and had her deeply instructed in various secular sciences as well. When the praise of the maiden, wise and beautiful and adorned with many virtues, reached the emperor’s ears, he decided to give the saint in marriage to Maximian Galerius (according to another account, to his co-ruler Maximian Hercules), which the maiden refused, since she had dedicated herself to the Lord from her youth. Diocletian advised Maximian to use force on the maiden. Stirred by foul passions, Maximian came to the blessed one at night; he did not shrink from her even as she stood at prayer and tried to approach her, but the sight of a radiant angel of the Lord above Saint Susanna’s head so terrified him that he rushed out of the room at once, ran to the palace, and told Diocletian what he had seen. After this the ruler, still more enraged, sent a cruel executioner, Macedonius, to the handmaid of the Lord. The godless man demanded that the blessed one worship the idols, and when he received a firm refusal in reply, he first beat her mercilessly with rods and then ran her through with the sword. A short time after Susanna’s martyrdom the saint’s father, Gabinius, and her uncle, Gaius, Pope of Rome (283–296), died as martyrs for Christ.
Saint Claudius and his brother Maximus were close kinsmen of Diocletian. Through their acquaintance with the pious family of Gabinius the brothers came to know the true God and were baptised together with Claudius’s wife, Praepedigna, and his sons, Alexander and Cuthias. The God-hating autocrat seized them and exiled them to Ostia, near Rome. Here the tormentors burned the saints in fire and gave their ashes to the sea.
The incorrupt relics of the blessed Susanna and her father are kept in Rome, in the church dedicated to the holy virgin martyr; the relics of the holy Pope Gaius also rest in Rome, in the church dedicated to him.
