The Life of the Holy Martyr Arghira

The Holy New Martyr Arghira was born in Prussia of Bithynia (today the city of Bursa in Turkey) around 1692. The saint's parents, George and Susanna, raised her in the Orthodox faith, and Saint Arghira thoroughly assimilated, from childhood, the love of God.

Arghira married a young Greek man, but after the Holy Marriage, she was subjected to much pressure from a pasha, the eparch of Bursa at that time. He forced her to abandon her husband and faith in order to take her into his harem. On the advice of her parents, Arghira, accompanied by her husband, left her native city for Constantinople, to her relatives and acquaintances of the family.

From the testimonies of contemporaries, it is known that the persecutor who was pursuing her did not give up and, using the power and persecution of the relatives of the young Arghira, learned of her departure and sent soldiers to bring her by force to the ranks of his women. At that time, the neighborhoods inhabited by the Orthodox Greeks of Constantinople were fiercely controlled until the persecutors found Saint Arghira.

Because she did not want to renounce her faith in the Savior Jesus Christ, and the Greeks defended her, the oppressors used the arm of the law and unjustly accused her of rebellion and insulting Islam, and thus sentenced her to life imprisonment. Her parents tried in vain to obtain a fair trial for the release of their daughter, but they did not succeed.

For the next 16 years, the innocent young woman was constantly questioned by the judge, beaten, and imprisoned. And in prison, she was constantly harassed by the Turkish women condemned there. But Arghira bore this trouble with greatness and patience; she gave herself to fasting and prayer, encouraging other Christians who were in the same prison.

She was threatened that she could only be free on the condition that she renounced the Christian faith and agreed to become the wife of the Pasha of Bursa. Therefore, she sent word to her parents that it would not benefit them to be free if she were forced to become a pagan, but she preferred prison, thus remaining Jesus Christ's.

The heart of the blessed Arghira was filled with unfathomable joy and such gratitude, for she had been imprisoned for Christ, that she considered her shortcomings to be her advantages. Thus it is that when the pious Christian Manolis, the net weaver, succeeded in having the charges dropped so that she could be released, Arghira did not accept the lifting of the sentence, considering the prison to be a royal palace. Thus, imprisoned and chained for Christ, she ended her life receiving the imperishable crown of martyrdom in the year 1725.

Three years after the death of Saint Arghira, her holy body was found untouched, emitting an incomparably pleasant fragrance, which filled the Christians with unspeakable joy. Patriarch Paisios of Constantinople himself moved her wonderful relics to the Church of Saint Paraskevi, where they are still venerated by the faithful today.

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