Adrian and Natalia were a married couple of Nicomedia in Asia Minor who, with twenty-three companions, were put to death during the persecution of Christians under the emperor Maximian. They are commemorated together on August 26. The tradition presents them as a young couple of noble and wealthy families: Adrian held the office of head of the praetorium at Nicomedia and was a pagan, while Natalia was a secret Christian.
According to the synaxarion, twenty-three Christians were captured in a cave near Nicomedia, tortured, and pressed to worship the idols. As their names and answers were being recorded before the magistrate, Adrian witnessed the firmness and fearlessness with which they confessed Christ. Asking what reward they expected from their God and learning that it surpassed description, he declared that his own name should be written down as well, professing himself a Christian though he had not yet been baptized.
Natalia, learning of her husband's confession, came to him in prison; by tradition she cut her hair and dressed in men's clothing in order to gain entry and to encourage him. She reminded him that everything worldly is dust and ashes, and strengthened him and the other confessors to remain steadfast. The accounts make her exhortation, rather than her own suffering, the center of her veneration: she sustained the martyrs to the end and afterward guarded their memory.
The martyrs were put to death by having their hands and legs broken upon an anvil. Fearing that her husband might falter at the sight of the others' agony, Natalia asked that the executioners begin with Adrian. When the bodies were to be burned, the tradition relates that a storm arose and quenched the fire, and that Natalia recovered one of Adrian's hands. The relics were afterward carried to Argyropolis near Constantinople, where a church was built in their honor.
