St. Apollonia

Saint Apollonia is one of the most widely venerated early Christian martyrs, though much of what is known about her comes from a single ancient source. According to a letter written by Bishop Dionysius of Alexandria and preserved by the Church historian Eusebius in his Ecclesiastical History, Apollonia was an elderly woman from Alexandria, Egypt, during a local uprising against the Christians that took place around the year 249. This violent outbreak occurred during a period of civil unrest between the anti-Christian emperor Philip the Arab and his rival Decius, when traditional pagan cults blamed Christians for the empire's troubles. Alexandrian mobs attacked Christians in the streets, and Apollonia became one of the most prominent victims of this persecution.

Dionysius's account describes Apollonia as a deaconess (διακόνισσα) in the church of Alexandria, a role that would have given her a recognized position of service within the Christian community. The mob first seized her and broke her teeth with violent blows, and when the crowd threatened to throw her into a fire unless she uttered blasphemous words against Christ, she reportedly asked for a brief moment to consider. She then walked into the flames voluntarily, dying as a martyr. The exact date of her death is not recorded with certainty, but scholars generally place it in 249, before the more systematic Decian persecution that began early the following year.

Because Apollonia's story comes largely from this one early source, much of what is popularly said about her rests on later tradition rather than contemporary evidence. The earliest accounts do not name her parents, describe her early life, or mention any of the miracles or visions that later legends attribute to her. Some later Western traditions have even confused her with the much earlier Apollonia of Rome, a confusion that contributed to additional legendary material over the centuries. What is certain is that she was remembered as a faithful Christian who chose death over renouncing her faith, and her witness was preserved by Eusebius as an example of courage during a chaotic and dangerous time for the Alexandrian church.

The cult of Saint Apollonia spread remarkably widely from Alexandria across both the Eastern and Western Christian world. By the sixth century, churches in honor of her had been built in Rome and elsewhere, and her name appears in early martyrologies including the Hieronymian Martyrology. Because of the manner of her torture, she became the patron saint invoked against toothache and dental ailments, and she is the traditional patron of dentists. Her feast day, February 9, was established in the Western calendar and was removed from the general Roman calendar after the Second Vatican Council, though she remains on local calendars and is still venerated by many. In Christian art she is typically shown holding a pair of pincers or tongs gripping a tooth, a vivid iconographic symbol that has preserved her identity for nearly two thousand years.