The life of St Tatiana
During a persecution she was arrested and brought before the authorities to be forced into pagan worship, which she steadfastly refused.
The tradition that has come down about her ordeal is long and richly told, filled with repeated tortures that she is said to have survived unharmed, among them fire that did not burn her and a hungry lion that would not touch her. She was finally beheaded together with her father, and the Church has kept her memory ever since as a young woman of both gentleness and unbending courage. Modern historians note that her cult is not attested until centuries after her supposed death, and that the emperor named in her story, Alexander Severus, was not otherwise known as a persecutor of Christians, so the specific shape of her sufferings is best received as the Church's traditional memory rather than settled history. She is honored today as a patron of students.
