Life and Martyrdom
The synaxarion relates that Juliana was the daughter of Africanus, described as an illustrious pagan, and that she was betrothed as a child to Elusius, a senator and advisor at the imperial court. Recognizing the emptiness of the pagan religion, she is said to have received holy Baptism in secret. When the time appointed for her wedding drew near, she refused to be married.
Her refusal provoked her father, who beat her and then handed her over to the Eparch — who, by the account, was Elusius himself, her former betrothed. She was beaten long and harshly and otherwise tormented, yet the tradition holds that after each beating she was restored, receiving healing and new strength from God. Elusius at length sentenced her to death, and she is said to have accepted the sentence with joy. She was executed in the year 304.
Those Martyred With Her
Juliana's commemoration is collective: she is remembered together with the men and women who, witnessing her steadfastness under torture, were moved to confess Christ themselves. The synaxarion numbers them as 500 men and 130 women.
By the account these converts were beheaded for their confession; the tradition speaks of them as having been 'baptized in their own blood,' that is, received into the Church through martyrdom itself. For this reason the entry is kept as a single commemoration of Juliana and her companions rather than as separate individual lives.
Veneration
Juliana is venerated across the Orthodox calendar on December 21; in the Western tradition her principal feast is February 16. She came to be honored in the West as a patron of the sick, and her cult was particularly strong in the Netherlands during the Middle Ages.
Her story passed into early medieval literature: she is the subject of an Old English (Anglo-Saxon) poem attributed to the eighth-century poet Cynewulf. Western artistic tradition depicts her leading a winged devil bound by a chain, an image drawn from her passion narrative.
