Martyr Ia of Persia and 9 000 Martyrs with her

Ia was a Christian woman of the Sasanian Persian frontier who, by tradition, suffered martyrdom together with a great company of some nine thousand Christians during the persecution of Christians under the Persian king Shapur II (reigned 309-379). She is commemorated in the Orthodox calendar on September 11. The persecution under Shapur intensified in the decades after the conversion of the Roman emperor Constantine the Great, when Persian Christians came to be regarded with suspicion as potential sympathizers of the Christian Roman Empire, and it continued until Shapur's death in 379.

According to the tradition preserved in the synaxarion, the multitude of Christians with whom Ia was taken were captives carried off when Shapur's forces seized a frontier stronghold and deported its Christian population deeper into Persia. The Greek sources give Ia's name the meaning "violet." Brought before the authorities, she was pressed by the chief of the Persian magi to renounce Christ and to worship the elements of fire and water honored in Persian religion, but she refused and confessed her faith.

For her steadfastness Ia was subjected to repeated and prolonged tortures and a long imprisonment before she was finally beheaded. By tradition, extraordinary signs accompanied her death: the light of the sun was darkened and the air was filled with a sweet fragrance. She is venerated as one of the many martyrs of the Church of Persia who perished in the fourth-century persecution, her own witness standing for the great anonymous company that suffered with her.