Monday 8 June 2020

St Viviana



2nd December is the saint’s day for Viviana (sometimes spelled Bibiana), a Christian martyr in 4th century Rome.

Viviana and Demetria were members of a Christian family, their parents being Flavian and Dafrosa. When the governor of Rome, Apronianus, accidentally lost an eye he reckoned that the Christians must have been to blame and he used the incident as an excuse to persecute Flavian and his family.

Flavian was killed by having his face burned with a red-hot piece of metal, later dying from his injuries, and Dafrosa was beheaded. All the family’s property was confiscated and the two daughters, who were presumably in their teens at the time, lived in extreme poverty as a result.

Apronianius had assumed that these privations, plus the shock of losing their parents, would have turned the girls away from their faith, but in this he was completely wrong. After five months he had them put on trial.

Demetria boldly professed her Christianity in court, but fell down dead immediately afterwards. Apronianus ordered that Viviana should be placed in the care of a pagan woman named Rufina, who was instructed to force Viviana to change her ways, by any means that Rufina saw fit.

Despite all the tortures that Rufina could devise, nothing would persuade Viviana to recant. Instead, Apronianus condemned her to death by flogging. She was tied to a pillar and scourged with whips that were weighted by lead. Her body was left in the open, with the intention that it would be eaten by wild animals but, when none had done so, it was buried two days later.

Viviana, for reasons that seem somewhat obscure, is the patron saint of hangovers, among other things!


© John Welford

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