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Barbara van Heliopolis.
Name of Latin origin.
The name Barbara is said to come from the name: "Barbara", which means a stranger or barbarian, a non-Roman person.
273 in Heliopolis, Lebanon.
+- in the year 305 in Gerasa or in Nicomedia (Izmit currently in Turkey.)
She is the daughter of a certain "Dioscore", an important official of the Roman Empire.
Barbara is described as an only child, of great beauty, so beautiful that her father, a very protective pagan admirer of his daughter, had a tower built with two windows to lock her up. He wanted to protect her from greed.
Knowing her father's intentions, one day she said in her tower "I prefer death over marriage" after rejecting several suitors.
But one day her father went on a trip and left her alone in her tower. She felt so calm and peaceful without the pressure of her father that she slowly opened her mind to God.
As a recluse, she expressed disappointment in her father's pagan beliefs and managed to make contact with a devout man, a certain Origen, who first introduced her to Christianity before baptizing her in the tower.
To make her act special, she made a third window in the tower as a sign of acceptance of God and the Holy Trinity and left, in the marble of a pool, an imprint of her foot and the Holy Cross.
When her father returned from his trip, he questioned his daughter about creating this third window. Barbara confessed that she had accepted Christ, which angered Dioscore. He tried to force her into marriage and renounce Christ, but she refused, rebelled against her father, and fled to the mountains where she lived as a hermit.
Her father, aided by shepherds who had betrayed Barbara, managed to capture his daughter. He dragged her by the hair and locked her in a cell.
She is condemned by a certain Marcian who tortures her for refusing to renounce the Christian faith before being beheaded by a sword from the hand of her own father.
Her father, who killed his own daughter without any sign of remorse, was later struck by heavenly vengeance. He was struck by lightning during a thunderstorm and died from his injuries.
The legend of Saint Barbara takes place during her escape from the tower. It is said that, for her father who wanted to kill her, a rock from the mountain would have split open to let her escape. Dioscore continued to search for his daughter in the mountains and encountered two shepherds. One of them betrayed Barbara by pointing out her hiding place. Shortly thereafter, this shepherd is said to have turned into a rock and his sheep into beetles.
During her torture, Barbara responds with determination to Marcian's questions and continues to mock her father's pagan religion. She is stripped, beaten, and thrown into prison. The Lord appears to her in the middle of the night, comforts her, heals her wounds, and restores her beauty. The next day, upon seeing this miracle, Barbara's breasts are cut off and she is forced to walk naked through the land. But God intervenes again and covers her with a white dress sent from heaven. Barbara reaches Gerasion, where the judge Dioscore orders the execution.
The veneration of Saint Barbara first spread westward from the place of her death near Constantinople, where Barbara is even considered a native martyr. It slowly spread westward until the 11th century when her veneration became more widespread.
She is the patron saint of architects, firefighters, stone masons, miners, and people at risk of sudden death, and she is invoked for protection against thunderstorms.
Her body is said to have been transferred from Nicomedia to Constantinople in the 6th century and some relics are said to be located in the monastery of Saint John the Evangelist in Torcello and in the cathedral of Saint Volodymyr in Kyiv.
