Saint Lucy

Life events

1. Born — 283

   Lucy was born c. 283 in Syracuse, Sicily, to wealthy parents of Roman and Greek origin; her father died when she was five years old.

2. Pilgrimage — 303

   Lucy accompanied her mother Eutychia on a pilgrimage to the shrine of Agatha of Sicily at Catania, where her mother's bleeding disorder was reportedly healed; Lucy subsequently persuaded Eutychia to allow her to distribute a large portion of the family's wealth to the poor.

3. Other — 304

   Lucy's betrothed denounced her to Paschasius, Governor of Syracuse, after learning that she was distributing her dowry and patrimony to the poor; Paschasius ordered her to burn a sacrifice to the emperor's image, which she refused.

4. Martyred — 304

   Lucy was executed by sword thrust to the throat in Syracuse during the Diocletianic Persecution; this single fact — that a disappointed suitor accused her of being a Christian and she was executed in 304 — is the point upon which all accounts agree.

5. Other

   The earliest evidence of Lucy's veneration is the grave stele of Euskia, discovered in the catacombs of Syracuse, dated to the late fourth or early fifth century; by the sixth century Lucy appears in the procession of virgins in the Basilica of Sant'Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna and in the Sacramentary of Pope Gregory I.

6. Translated — 972

   Emperor Otto I removed Lucy's relics from Corfinium in Abruzzo to the church of St. Vincent in Metz in 972; the body had previously been transferred from Sicily to Corfinium by Faroald II, Duke of Spoleto, some centuries earlier.

7. Translated — 1204

   During the sack of Constantinople in 1204, French crusaders found relics attributed to Lucy in the city; Enrico Dandolo, Doge of Venice, secured them for the monastery of St. George at Venice, where the majority remain in the church of San Geremia.

Relationships

Documented claims

• Lucy is one of eight women (including the Virgin Mary) explicitly commemorated by Catholics in the Canon of the Mass — a distinction shared with very few saints. (certain)
• Lucy's emblem of eyes on a dish or cup derives from her name (Latin: Lucia, from lux, 'light') and later legends of eye-gouging; the eye-gouging tradition is absent from early sources and appears no earlier than the fifteenth century. (likely)
• The Christian tradition states that when guards came to take Lucy to a brothel, they could not move her even when a team of oxen was hitched to her; bundles of wood heaped about her also failed to ignite. (legendary)
• Dante Alighieri placed Lucy in all three canticles of the Divine Comedy — as messenger in Inferno 2, carrying Dante to purgatory's gate in Purgatorio 9, and seated opposite Adam in the Mystic Rose in Paradiso 32 — interpreting her as a figure of illuminating grace. (certain)
• In Denmark, Norway, Sweden, and parts of Finland, St. Lucy's Day on 13 December is observed with a young girl in a white dress and red sash wearing a crown of lit candles, leading a procession; the feast's association with midwinter light predates the calendar reforms that separated it from the solstice. (certain)