Saint Christina of Bolsena

Christina was a girl martyred during the persecution of Diocletian, at the beginning of the fourth century, and her Passion has come down to us in a great many versions from different periods — which, however, can’t even agree on where she was born. The problem lies in one word: Tyre. Eastern sources mean Tyre in Phoenicia; Latin ones mean the part of Lazio that looks out on the Tyrrhenian Sea, that is, the area around Bolsena. So there is a Christina of Tyre and a Christina of Bolsena, and it isn’t clear whether they are two people or one person read in two ways. The oldest text we have dates from the first half of the fifth century: a papyrus found at Oxyrhynchus, in Egypt, and published only in 1911. It is damaged, but one fragment has been reconstructed thanks to a ninth-century codex kept at Farfa. Jacobus de Voragine included her in the Golden Legend as well. The story tells of a girl from a wealthy family who smashed her father’s golden idols to give the proceeds to the poor, and who for this was tortured by her own father and then by the magistrates who came after him. Among the torments was being thrown into the lake with a stone around her neck — and, the story goes, she came out alive. In Bolsena she is the patron saint, and her relics rest in the basilica by the lake. If your name is Christina, today is your name day.