St. Anastasia of Sirmium

St. Anastasia of Sirmium (died c. 304) was an early martyr venerated from ancient times, traditionally held to have suffered during the persecution of Diocletian. Later accounts, largely legendary, describe her as a Roman noblewoman who devoted herself to comforting and aiding the imprisoned Christians and confessors, and who, refusing to sacrifice to the gods, was herself put to death for the faith — by tradition burned or beheaded — at Sirmium in the Balkans (in present-day Serbia).

Her veneration spread from Sirmium to Constantinople and to Rome, where a church on the Palatine was dedicated to her. Because of that church, and by a long tradition, the pope celebrated the second Mass of Christmas — the Mass at dawn — at her titular basilica, and so her name came to be commemorated on Christmas Day; she is one of the martyrs named in the Roman Canon of the Mass. Honored in both East and West, she is remembered as a woman who served the persecuted and shared their crown.