Aug 182012
Article
BARBARA (Saint) Virgin Martyr (Dec. 4) (3rd century) A popular Saint, both in the Eastern and in the Western Church. She is looked upon as the Patron Saint of certain dangerous crafts and professions, such as those of firework makers, artillerymen, etc. There is no reliable account extant of her life and martyrdom. Some authors contend that she suffered at Nicomedia in Asia Minor under the Emperor Maximian I, about A.D. 235; while others have it that she was a victim like so many thousands of other Christians of the savage cruelty of Galerius, colleague of Diocletian, and that she was done to death at Heliopolis in Egypt as late as A.D. 306.
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