A Christian woman of Anatolia, learned in the Scriptures, who was carried off captive in the campaign of Shapur of Persia and was put to death for confessing Christ.
Feast Day
August 4
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Eudokia of Persia was a fourth-century Christian woman, a native of Anatolia in Asia Minor, remembered as a martyr who was carried off into Persian captivity and put to death for confessing Christ.
According to the hagiographic accounts, she was deported to Persia together with a large body of Christians taken during a military campaign of the Persian emperor Shapur (Sapor). Well versed in the Scriptures, she instructed and strengthened her fellow captives and converted many Persian women before she was tortured and beheaded.
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Captivity in Persia
The accounts relate that Eudokia was seized by the army of the Persian emperor Shapur during a campaign and deported to Persia along with a great number of Christians, given by the sources as up to nine thousand.
By one account she was placed in the service of a Persian officer's household. Because she knew the Holy Scriptures well, she instructed the other captives and provided moral support to the deported Christians, and she preached to the Persian women, converting many of them to Christianity.
Martyrdom
For her witness and her work of conversion Eudokia endured lengthy and fierce persecution. The fuller accounts describe a staged sequence of tortures: she was flogged and imprisoned, and when she refused to renounce Christianity she was beaten with thorny rods and imprisoned again, before further torments were inflicted.
She was finally put to death by beheading. The Orthodox Church commemorates her as a martyr on August 4.
Sources and Historicity
What is known of Eudokia derives from Christian hagiographic accounts rather than from independent historical documentation. Some modern Orthodox hagiographers have expressed doubts about her historical existence, suggesting she may be confused or identified with another saint, and noting the close parallels between her Passion and that of the Martyr Ia of Persia, also commemorated on August 4.
Her companions & kin
Also commemorated on August 4; her Passion closely parallels that of Eudokia, and some hagiographers consider the two accounts related.
Martyr Ia of Persia
Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints
