JULY 15

Day 15: Kyriakos and Yolita his mother, martyrs.

Yolita was born in Iconia City in a noble family. She got married with a noble man, who died young, leaving to her a big wealth and one three years old child, Cyril. Yolita was a very devout lady, worshiping Jesus Christ in constant prayers and serving Him especially in the poor.

When Diocletian launched his persecution against the Christians, she left her homeland and her wealth and move along with her son and servant to Tarsus City. There, she was arrested as she was traveling carrying her son on her, and interrogated by the governor, Alexander about her country of origin and her religious denomination. She would give him only one simple answer: “I am a Christian”. At that the soldiers snatched her son from her arms, and went on torturing her barbarically, while she patiently endured suffering, and steadily repeated: “I am Christian”, as her blood was watering the grounds.

The governor then, turned to her little child, trying to convince him to give up the Christian faith. However, the boy who could hear his mother’s voice: “I am Christian”, shouted out: “I am Christian”; which enraged that tyrant governor, and he throw down the kid from above the stage, and his head broke down open as he landed nearby his mother, and as his blood mixed with hers, she was looking at him with a tearful eyes, and smiling in encouragement to him. This made the governor madder and his order her body to be torn with iron nails, then they poured over her wounded body boiling oil, while she was patiently and gratefully enduring the pain. At that the governor, ordered her decapitation, and thus she joined her son and the glorious myriad of martyrs in the year 305. May their prayer be with us. Amen.