Great Martyr Anastasia

Anastasia was a Roman noblewoman, secretly instructed in the faith of Christ, whose teacher was the confessor Chrysogonus. Married against her will to a pagan, she endured his cruelty until his death freed her, and she then devoted her wealth and herself to the imprisoned Christians of the Diocletian persecution, entering the dungeons by night to wash their wounds, feed them, and encourage them before their contests — for which the Church names her Pharmakolytria, 'Deliverer from Potions,' as she healed many from the effects of poisons and torments, and is invoked against them still. She traveled through Greece and Illyricum serving the confessors as one prison after another was emptied by execution. Arrested at last, she endured hunger, the threat of drowning, and fire, and was martyred — burned or beheaded — at Sirmium about 304, with companions who suffered alongside her.