Agrippina of Rome

Agrippina was a young Roman of the third century, raised in the faith from infancy by her Christian parents, who confessed herself a Christian openly even after entering the city's pagan circles in adulthood. Under the Emperor Valerian (253–260), she was arrested and brought before the city prefect for examination. The synaxarion records that she answered every question with the same simple confession, refused to defile herself with the meat offered to idols even when threatened with the most savage torments, and endured being scourged with iron flails until her body gave way.

Three Christian women who had been her companions in the faith — Bassa, Paula, and Agathonike — retrieved her body in secret and brought it from Rome to the island of Sicily, where they buried it at Mineo on the southeastern coast. The shrine there became a regular site of pilgrimage in the medieval period, and many miracles of healing were attributed to Agrippina's intercession. Her feast falls on June 23.