St. Lydia

St. Lydia was a first-century woman of Thyatira, a city of Asia Minor famous for its dyeing trade, who dealt in the costly purple cloth prized in the ancient world. The Acts of the Apostles recounts that she had settled at Philippi in Macedonia and was a "worshiper of God" — a Gentile drawn to the faith of Israel. When St. Paul came to Philippi and spoke to a gathering of women by the riverside, "the Lord opened her heart" to heed his preaching.

She and her household were baptized, making her, by the witness of Scripture, the first recorded Christian convert on European soil. A woman of means and hospitality, she pressed Paul and his companions to lodge in her home, which became a base for the infant Church at Philippi — the first Christian community founded in Europe. She is honored as a saint and remembered as a model of faith, generosity, and hospitality in the apostolic age.