From the Prologue of Ochrid
Husband and wife, both of noble and wealthy lineage from Nicomedia. Adrian was the chief officer of the praetorium and a pagan, while Natalia was a secret Christian. Both were young, and they had lived in marriage only thirteen months before his martyrdom. When the wicked Emperor Maximian visited Nicomedia, he ordered that Christians be seized and put to torture. Near the city, in a cave, twenty-three Christians were hiding. Someone reported them to the authorities, and they were fiercely beaten with rawhide and rods, then cast into prison. Then they were led out of prison and brought to the praetorium to have their names recorded. Adrian gazed at these people, tortured yet patient, peaceful and meek, and adjured them to tell him what they expected from their God for such great torments endured. They told him of the blessedness of the righteous in the Kingdom of God. Hearing this, and again looking at those people, Adrian suddenly turned to the scribe and said: "Write my name also with these holy ones, for I too am a Christian!" When the emperor heard of this, he asked Adrian: "Have you lost your mind?" To which Adrian replied: "I have not lost my mind; rather, I have come to my senses." Hearing of this, Natalia was exceedingly glad, and when Adrian sat fettered in prison with the others, she came and served them all; and when her husband was beaten and tormented with various tortures, she encouraged him to endure to the end. After long torments and imprisonment, the emperor ordered that an anvil be brought to the prison and that their legs and arms be broken with a hammer. This was carried out, and Adrian together with twenty-three honorable men breathed their last amid the most terrible torments. Natalia translated their relics to Constantinople and there honorably buried them. After a few days Saint Adrian appeared to her, all in light and beauty, and called her also to come to God, and she peacefully surrendered her spirit to God.
