BARBARA

Memorial: 4 December; removed from revised Roman calendar in 1969 and cult suppressed
Profile: Beautiful maiden imprisoned in a high tower by her father Dioscorus for disobedience. While there she was tutored by philosophers, orators and poets. From them she learned to think, and decided that polytheism was nonsense. With the help of Origen and Valentinian, she converted to Christianity. Her father denounced her to the local authorities for this, and they ordered him to kill her. She escaped, but he caught her, dragged her home by her hair, tortured her, and killed her. He was immediately struck by lightning, or according to some sources, fire from heaven.
Her imprisonment led to her association with towers, then the construction and maintenance of them, then to their military uses. The lightening that avenged her murder led to summoning her protection against fire and lightening, and patronage of firefighters, etc. Her association with things military and with death that falls from the sky led to her patronage of all things related to artillery, and her image graced powder magazines and arsenals for years. While there were undoubtedly beautiful converts named Barbara, this saint is legend.
Died: beheaded by her father c.235 @ Nicomedia during the persecution of Maximinus of Thrace
Name Meaning: stranger
Patronage: against death by artillery, against explosions, against fire, against impenitence, against lightening, against mine collapse, against storms, ammunition magazines, architects, Armourers, artillerymen, boatmen, brass workers, brewers, builders, carpenters, construction workers, dying people, fire prevention, firefighters, fireworks manufacturers, founders, fortifications, geologists, gravediggers, gunners, hatmakers, hatters, mariners, martyrs, masons, mathematicians, military engineers, milliners, miners, prisoners, safety from storms, sailors, saltpetre workers, stone masons, stonecutters, storms, sudden death, smelters, Syria, tilers, watermen

Representation: cannon; chalice; palm of martyrdom; princess in a tower with either the palm of martyrdom or chalice of happy death; tower; woman holding a tower or feather; woman trampling a Saracen

The Ballard of St Barbara

Photo of St Barbara's Church Woomera
(Graham Pickering)

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