Saint Afra
Profile
Prostitute. During the Diocletian persecutions, she and her mother Hilaria hid their bishop. He converted them, and Afra devoted herself to working with the poor. Eventually she was ordered to sacrifice to pagan gods; she refused. Martyr.
When her mother, Hilaria, and the servants Digna, Eunomia and Eprepria went to inter her burned remains in a sepulchre, they were caught by the authorities. The four of them were ordered to make the same sacrifice that Afra had refused. They refused, and were burned to death in Afra’s sepulchre.
Born
- suffocated from smoke inhalation while being burned alive c.304 at Augsburg, Bavaria, Germany
- woman being burned alive
Additional Information
- Book of Saints, by the Monks of Ramsgate
- Dictionary of Saints, by John Delaney
- Our Sunday Visitor’s Encyclopedia of Saints, by Matthew Bunson, Margaret Bunson, and Stephen Bunson
![9kb jpg detail from an old holy card of Saint Afra, artist unknown [Saint Afra]](http://saints.sqpn.com/sainta63.jpg)
