The life of St Placilla the Empress
Living through years when Arian teaching still held real influence in parts of the Roman world, she stood firmly with the Nicene faith throughout, and two of the era's greatest churchmen, Ambrose in Milan and Gregory of Nyssa, each set down their own admiration for how she lived that conviction out, Gregory describing her as a genuine partner to her husband in every good work he undertook and a real pillar under the Church's own life. Rather than confine her charity to what her rank made easy, the historian Theodoret recalled, she went to the disabled and the suffering herself, tending them with her own hands instead of only sending resources their way, and is remembered to have said that handing out money came naturally with imperial rank, but that personal service was the offering she chose to make on her own account, given directly to God rather than through others.
She reposed in either 385 or 386.
