Saint Barbara of Ba‘albakThe fourth of December, as well as being the feast-day of Saint John of Damascus, is also the feast-day of Saint Barbara in the Orthodox Church of America, and with her her fellow-martyr Saint Iouliana. She suffered for Christ in the year 311, during the reign of Maximianus Herculius. Saint Barbara is commemorated universally throughout the Orthodox Church and her cultus is widespread even in Catholic and Lutheran countries, particularly as a patron of gunners, demolition workers and people who handle explosives. She is commemorated locally in Lebanon and Syria with a day on the seventeenth of December, which is her feast-day on the Julian Calendar.
Barbara [Gk. Βαρβάρα, Syr. Barbara ܒܪܒܪܐ, Ar. Barbârah بربارة] was a young woman of Heliopolis – modern day Ba‘albak in Lebanon – who was born to a wealthy pagan father, Dioskoros, and his beautiful wife. Barbara’s mother died at a young age, and she was raised by Dioskoros alone. She grew up in the image of her mother, into great beauty; seeing her, Dioskoros sought to hide her away from the covetous eyes of men. To do so, he built for her a tall tower and ensconced her there, where only her tutors – themselves all pagans – were allowed in to visit her. Still, Barbara was as bright as she was beautiful, and the more she inquired into the pagan philosophies the less she was satisfied with them. She looked out from her tower toward the hills and trees and meadows with their flowers and the skies with their stars. Barbara marvelled at their beauty, and began to wonder about the first cause and Creator of so excellent and harmonious a cosmos.
Independently, and of her own intelligence, she became convinced that the Creator of the universe could not be fashioned into or worshipped as a soulless and lifeless idol, and she began to reject the worship that her father and her teachers offered to the Roman gods. She committed herself to a life of virgin purity and contemplation, the desire to know and understand the true God who had created the universe burning brightly within her heart.
Eventually, word of her beauty got out from the tower and around into Heliopolis, and soon many young men came to Dioskoros, seeking her hand in marriage. But she rejected them all, despite their own suits and despite the urgings of her father. Dioskoros, thinking that life in full seclusion had influenced her, gave her a greater degree of freedom and allowed her to go into the city to make and choose her friends. It happened that Barbara made the acquaintance of several Christian girls living in Heliopolis, and – eager to be instructed – she began to inquire about the doctrines of Christianity, about the Triune nature of the Creator, about the Word of God who came in the flesh and gave His life for the world’s life. Barbara was quickly convinced of the Christian doctrines. She met, and was secretly catechised and baptised by, an Alexandrian priest who was passing through Heliopolis in his return to his home country, and had taken on a merchant’s guise to avoid persecution.
It happened at this time that Dioskoros was building a bathhouse at his villa. He had given careful instruction to the architects, to place two windows in the south wall. However, after Dioskoros had left, Barbara gave new instructions to the architects for them to build a third window between them, so as to admit a trinity of light in honour of the Holy Trinity. She also traced with her finger a cross in the wall, which was etched so deeply into the marble that it seemed as though it had been made by a tool of hard steel. It was later found that Saint Barbara’s footprints were likewise indelibly inscribed on the stone of the bathhouse. After Saint Barbara’s martyrdom, the waters of this bathhouse were highly sought after for their curative properties, and the power of God wrought so many healing wonders there that the mediæval Byzantine hagiographer Saint Symeōn Metaphrastēs compared it to the River Jordan and the Pool of Siloam.
When Dioskoros returned from his trip, he was displeased with the changes that had been made to his bathhouse in his absence. Eventually it came out that his daughter was responsible for the alterations, and she boldly declared before him that she did not worship the pagan gods, but instead the Triune God who had created the Cosmos, and who had become flesh in the person of Christ for the world’s salvation. When he heard this, Dioskoros flew into a rage and grabbed a knife, seeking to strike his daughter with it. Saint Barbara fled him, and Dioskoros gave chase. She fled into a crevice in a hill which suddenly flung itself up in the middle of the road, and would not permit Dioskoros to cross. The crevice opened into a cave on the other side of the hill, and here she hid from her father.
After a long search for his daughter proved unsuccessful, Dioskoros encountered two shepherds on the hill, who told him where he could find Barbara. Dioskoros dragged Barbara out of the cave, beating her mercilessly, and even gave her into the power of the city præfect Martianus. The præfect subjected Barbara to further tortures, lashing her body with rawhide and rubbing a hair cloth into the wounds to worsen the pain. Saint Barbara endured these ordeals in prayer and asked the Heavenly Bridegroom to give her strength. The following morning Saint Barbara was publicly subjected to more gruesome tortures.
A local Greco-Syrian woman, Iouliana, was present in the crowd when they tortured the great-martyr. She took pity on the beautiful and innocent young girl who was being tormented for her faith, and she began to loudly condemn Martianus and the executioners, and declaimed in a raised voice the lordship of Christ. The executioners seized her as well alongside Saint Barbara. Both saints Barbara and Iouliana were tortured for a long time, their flesh being scourged with iron hooks, and then paraded through the city naked to the jeers of the crowd. An angel of God, in answer to Saint Barbara’s prayers, brought shimmering raiments to the women that shielded their bodies from the eyes of the assembly. The two women, Saint Barbara and Saint Iouliana, were brought to the execution ground and beheaded, with Dioskoros wielding the sword that ended his own daughter’s life. God was swift to punish the unfeeling father and the wicked præfect both, for their days were ended when they were struck by lightning.
Saint Barbara was very quickly recognised as a great martyr and a saint among the Christians of Heliopolis, and her veneration spread far beyond Ba‘albak in the centuries which followed. Her relics were translated from Lebanon to Constantinople in the 500s. In 1104, the relics of Saint Barbara were brought from Constantinople to the monastery of Saint Michael of the Golden Domes in Kiev – a wedding-present for Prince Sviatopolk II and his third wife, the Byzantine princess Barbara Komnena. They stayed in this building until the Second World War when they were transferred to Saint Vladimir’s Cathedral. Holy great martyr Barbara, worshipper of the Creator and faithful bride of the Bridegroom, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
Apolytikion for Saint Barbara, Tone 8:
Let us honor the holy martyr Barbara,
For as a bird she escaped the snares of the enemy,
And destroyed them through the help and defence of the Cross.
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