The life of St Christina of Tyre
She broke the household idols, and when her father discovered this he had her beaten and imprisoned; neither his anger nor her mother's tearful pleading could move her from her confession of Christ. Successive governors after her father's death continued to torture her by fire, water, and other trials the Church remembers as many and severe, and her steadfastness and the wonders surrounding her were said to have drawn hundreds to the faith before she was finally put to death.
Christina's historical existence is only thinly attested; the account of her life comes from a legend composed centuries later, and Western tradition ties a nearly identical story to a martyr buried at Bolsena in Italy, with scholars long recognizing the two accounts as intertwined versions of one earlier memory rather than two separate lives.
