Saint Juliana of Nicomedia

Juliana was born in Nicomedia around 285 to a pagan family, and converted to Christianity. She was eighteen and the daughter of an imperial official: a position that, at that moment and in that city, was the worst possible. Diocletian had chosen Nicomedia as his residence, the second capital of the empire after Rome. And it was from there that his persecution began: Eusebius says that Christians were hunted down and struck even inside the imperial offices and palaces. Juliana was promised in marriage to the city’s prefect, Eleusius. She agreed, but on one condition: that the groom become a Christian. It was her fiancé himself who denounced her. Brought before the court, she renounced nothing in prison, and in 305 she was beheaded. She died together with Bishop Anthimus, Saint Barbara and others. Her remains then made a journey that ended badly and well at the same time: in the keeping of a Roman matron, they were headed to Rome by sea, but the ship was wrecked. They were taken in by the cathedral of Cumae, which no longer exists. That is one of the reasons Juliana is so venerated in Campania — and, by an entirely different route, in the Netherlands too. If your name is Juliana, today is your name day: a name that sounds ancient and modern at the same time. An eighteen-year-old girl who answers a marriage proposal by setting a condition. It didn’t end well, but the condition was her own choice.