During the reign of the adversaries of Christ, Emperor Diocletian and his son-in-law Maximian, there lived in Anatolia two pious and elderly souls, Dorotheus and Eusebia.  They were devout Christians, wealthy but childless.  Unceasing in prayer they obtained a child from God, this holy Kyriaki.

  From her childhood, Kyriaki consecrated herself to God restraining from everything that unruly children do.  When she matured, beautiful in body and soul, many suitors came to ask for her hand in marriage but she refused them all saying that she betrothed herself to Christ the Lord and that she desires nothing more than to die as a virgin.

  One of the rejected suitors denounced Kyriaki and her parents to Emperor Diocletian as being Christians.  The emperor ordered that Kyriaki's parents be tortured and after torturing them banished them to the town of Melitene where they died enduring much suffering for Christ.  Diocletian, however, sent Kyriaki to Maximian to stand trial.  [ Some say Diocletian never set foot in Rome, from where Maximiam ruled the western half of the empire.  Maximian was junior but not less competent and was appointed co-emperor a year after Diocletian's own assumption of the throne.  Having no sons, Diocletian may have treated his co-emperor like a son. ]

  As Kyriaki confirmed her faith in Christ before Maximian, he ordered that she be placed on the ground and flogged with oxen whips.  After that, the emperor handed her over to the commanders, at first Hilarion and then, after his death, to Apollonius.

  Both of them tortured Kyriaki in a beastly manner in all possible ways but all was in vain.  When St. Kyriaki lay in the prison cell, completely covered with wounds, Christ the Lord appeared to her, healed her and said:

"Kyriaki, do not be afraid of torture, My grace is with you."

  Kyriaki said to Apollonius:

"In no manner can you turn me away from my Faith.  If you throw me into the fire, I have an example in the Three Youths [Shadrach, Meshach and Abed-Nego]; if you throw me before wild beasts, I have an example in Daniel the Prophet; if you toss me into the sea, I have an example in Jonah the Prophet; if you give me over to the sword, I will remember the honorable Forerunner [John the Baptist]; life for me is to die for Christ."

  Kyriaki suffered honorably and was received into eternal joy in the year 289 A.D. in Nicomedia. [ 9/3/2010 Ben Ciriacks' note:  Left out of this story is why and how she was returned from Maximian in Rome to Diocletian in Nicomedia to be executed.  Given the reverence with which she is held in the eastern part of the old Roman Empire to this day, I suspect that she was from an especially prominent and extremely wealthy (politically connected) family (the Cyriac/Kyriakou family?).  Her execution would have extreme consequences so everyone washed their hands of it by passing her along to the supreme leader, Diocletian.  See the Dr. Kyriacos Lambrianides entry at our Kyriacos spelling page for his work along the Anatolian coast - he possibly finding information relating to the story of this 'Great Martyr'. ]