Saint Juliana of Nicomedia

Juliana of Nicomedia (Greek: Ίουλιανή Νικομηδείας) is an Anatolian Christian saint, said to have suffered martyrdom during the Diocletianic persecution in 304. She was popular as a patron saint of the sick during the Middle Ages, especially in the Netherlands. Both the Latin and Greek Churches mention a holy martyr Juliana in their lists of saints. The oldest historical notice of her is found in the Martyrologium Hieronymianum for 16 February, her place of birth being given as Cumae in Campania (In Campania Cumbas, Natale Julianae). The only reference to Juliana is in the Codex Epternacensis. That it is nevertheless authentic seems upheld by a letter of Saint Gregory the Great, which testifies to the special veneration of Saint Juliana in the neighbourhood of Naples. A pious matron named Januaria had built an oratory on one of her estates, and for its consecration, she sought relics (sanctuaria, that is to say, objects which had been brought into contact with the graves) of Saints Severin and Juliana. Gregory wrote to Fortunatus II, Bishop of Naples, telling him to accede to the wishes of Januaria. Her life is listed in the Bibliotheca Hagiographica Graeca (BHG) 963 and Bibliotheca Hagiographica Latina (BHL) 4522–4527. Sometime after Juliana's martyrdom, a noble lady named Sephora travelled through Nicomedia and took a martyr's body with her to Italy to be buried in Campania. It then seems reverence paid to another Juliana, honoured in Nicomedia, might have become conflated with that due to the Juliana who suffered at Cumae. Little that is satisfactory has survived of the accounts, respectively, of two quite distinct persons. Details of her biography are unclear. The Acts of Saint Juliana used by Bede in his "Martyrologium" may be legendary. According to this account, Saint Juliana, daughter of an illustrious pagan named Africanus, was born in Nicomedia; and as a child was betrothed to the Senator Eleusius, one of the emperor's advisors.