Over 39,000 Bulgarian women, baptized Tanya and Tatiana, celebrate their name day today. On January 12, the Orthodox Church honors the memory of St. Martyr Tatiana, whose name in ancient Greek means “organizing“.
Tatiana is an early Christian martyr. Born into a wealthy, but hiding faith in Christianity, Roman family, she took the path of chastity as a child. Completely imbued with this faith, Tatiana was ordained as a deaconess and devoted herself entirely to charity and unceasing prayer, writes offnews.bg.
At that time, the 16-year-old Alexander Severus (205-238 AD) ascended the Roman throne. He had eclectic beliefs: indifferent to the beliefs of others, he did not adhere to a particular worldview, which is why, among the idols of various pagan deities, he had an image of Christ in his home.
Tatiana fell victim to him. Without looking at her noble position and her impeccable life, they took her to the temple of Apollo to offer a sacrifice. Tatiana professed the Christian faith and refused to submit, fell to her knees and began to pray to God - the power of her sincere words broke the statue into a thousand pieces.
After the vain exhortations of the mayor to renounce Christ, young Tatiana was repeatedly subjected to the most cruel tortures, even having her eyes gouged out and strips of her body cut off. According to the scriptures, after each torture God performed a miracle with his confessor - she appeared the next day healed. The miracle shocked the Roman soldiers and they fell to their knees, repented and asked her to forgive them. The emperor became even more enraged and cut down his soldiers.
He continued to subject her to cruel torture and threw Tatiana to starving lions, but they did not even touch her, but began to caress her feet.
Fearing that such a sight would turn other pagans to the hated faith of the "Galileans", the governor ordered her to be beheaded immediately. The martyr's father also suffered the same fate.
Because of the great tortures she was subjected to, the church canonized her as the Holy Great Martyr Tatiana.
Women with the names Tanya, Tatiana and Traiana celebrate their name day.