Martyrs Adrian and Natalia

Adrian was a senior officer of the imperial guard at Nicomedia in 305, in the last and most savage year of the Diocletianic persecution, and was newly married to a young Christian named Natalia who had concealed her faith from him. When a great roundup of Christians was made at Nicomedia and 23 of them were brought before Adrian for registration, he was so struck by their constancy under torture that he asked them what they hoped for. They told him of the Kingdom — and Adrian, in the presence of the magistrate, declared himself a Christian and asked to be added to the register.

Natalia, learning what her husband had done, came to him in prison rejoicing rather than weeping — she had been praying for his conversion since their wedding day. She bribed the guards, visited him daily, and ministered to him through the torments that followed. When his legs and arms were finally broken on the rack, Natalia took his hand from the executioner's block and treasured it as a relic; the body was burned in a furnace but his hand was preserved.

Natalia escaped soon after to Byzantium, carrying Adrian's hand, and lived there in continual prayer at his shrine until her own peaceful repose a few months later. Their joint feast is kept on August 26.