Saint Lucy of Syracuse

Saint Lucy of Syracuse was a virgin and martyr of the early fourth century. She is among the most venerated saints of the ancient Church, and her name is mentioned in the Roman Canon. The Church commemorates her on December 13.

Little is known for certain about her life. We do not know the year of her birth, and the year of her death, 304, comes from tradition. The Italian edition of the Roman Missal says with caution that she suffered martyrdom probably during the persecution under Emperor Diocletian and that she was buried in Syracuse. The oldest witness to her veneration is a Greek funerary inscription from the beginning of the fifth century, found in the Catacombs of Saint John in that city: it remembers a young Christian woman, Euskia, who died on the feast of “my lady Lucy.”

Lucy’s story comes down to us in an account of her martyrdom written in Greek in the fifth century. Scholars regard the place and the day of her death in it as reliable; the rest must be read as an edifying narrative. According to it, Lucy came from a wealthy family, lost her father early, and was brought up by her mother, Eutychia. Her mother promised her to a young pagan, but Lucy wished to belong to Christ alone and kept putting off the wedding.

Eutychia had suffered from hemorrhages for years. The two went to Catania, to the tomb of Saint Agatha, and there the mother regained her health. Lucy is said to have seen Saint Agatha at that time, who foretold that as Catania was protected through Agatha, so Syracuse would be protected through Lucy. She then revealed her resolve to her mother and, with her consent, gave her dowry away to the poor.

Her disappointed betrothed denounced Lucy to the governor Paschasius as a Christian. Summoned before the court, she refused to offer sacrifice to the gods and answered in the words of the Apostle that those who live chastely are a temple of God and the Holy Spirit dwells in them. Paschasius ordered her to be taken to a brothel, but, as we read, the soldiers could not move her from the spot even with the help of oxen. Nor did the fire of the pyre touch her. She died by the sword.

Her veneration passed from Syracuse to Rome and spread throughout the Church. At the end of the sixth century Pope Gregory the Great promoted her cult. Lucy’s name suggests light, and her day falls close to the winter solstice, which is why people began to invoke her as the protector of eyesight. The story of her eyes being torn out is a later legend, unknown to the ancient account of her martyrdom. Saint Lucy’s Day is celebrated with particular solemnity in Italy and in Scandinavia.

The martyr’s body rested in the catacombs of Syracuse that bear her name. According to tradition, in 1039 the Byzantine general George Maniakes carried it off to Constantinople, and after the crusaders took that city in 1204 it came to Venice, where it rests to this day. In December 2024 it was brought to Syracuse for a time, and on that occasion Pope Francis wrote a letter to the Church there, which honors Lucy as its patroness. Lucy has been venerated as a saint since antiquity, without a formal canonization.