Blandina

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Saint Martyr Blandina, fresco in the Orthodox Chapel of the Dormition of Our Lady in Drôme

Blandina (* around 150; † around 177 in Lyon ) is an early Christian martyr and saint . Her feast day is in the Catholic and Protestant Church of the 2. June , the Orthodox churches of the 25th of July. She was one of 47 named victims of the Lyon pogrom , the total number of which is unknown.

During the reign of Emperor Marc Aurel , Blandina, who was a slave to a Christian family, suffered martyrdom in Lyon. Although the search for Christians was expressly forbidden by a rescript of the Emperor Trajan , she had been tracked down in the household of her owners and also imprisoned. The church father Eusebius of Caesarea († 339/40) reports that the virgin Blandina remained steadfast under torture. She was hung on a cross and thrown in a net of wild animals - bulls or lions. But they would not have touched them. The Roman citizens, who until then had to be heard in Rome, were executed after Emperor Marc Aurel had decided on request that this was no longer necessary. Finally, Blandina and a 15-year-old slave named Ponticus, who may have been her brother, were whipped, animals were chased on them , and they were roasted on an iron chair. In the end she was locked in a fish trap made of willow branches and thrown to a bull - after all, when she was already unconscious, Blandina was stabbed to death by the confector responsible for her . The ashes of the dead were scattered in the Rhone to prevent a martyr cult.

Amphitheater of the Trois-Gaules in Lyon. In the arena the memorial column for the martyrs

Blandina is venerated as the city ​​patroness of Lyon. She is also considered the patroness of the maidservants , servants and maidens.

Engraving by the Flemish engraver Jan van Haelbeck ( bl. 1600–1630), 20.3 * 13.7 cm, acquired from the British Museum in 1863. The work depicts Blandina being killed by a bull.

In iconography she is usually represented with bulls, but also with lions, a rust and a net as attributes of her martyrdom.

An art-historically significant fresco by Pomarancio in the church of Santo Stefano Rotondo in Rome shows the martyrdom of Blandina. In addition, there is a well-known glass painting in the Notre-Dame church in Paris , on which the martyr is portrayed with the attributes of a book and a martyr's palm .

In Lyon there is a church dedicated to her, the Église Sainte-Blandine de Lyon.

In Italy she became the patron saint of Posta Fibreno in Latium .

literature

Web links

Commons : Blandina  - collection of images, videos and audio files

supporting documents

  1. ↑ Wolfram Kinzig : Persecution of Christians in antiquity , CH Beck, Munich 2019, p. 54.
  2. ↑ Eusebius of Caesarea: Historia Ecclesiastica 5.1.
personal data
SURNAME Blandina
BRIEF DESCRIPTION martyr
DATE OF BIRTH at 150
PLACE OF BIRTH Lyon
DATE OF DEATH at 177
Place of death Lyon