Saint Agnes

Life story

Agnes was a girl in Rome who died a martyr while still very young. Veneration of her is very old: by the fourth century she was already named in the calendar of the Church of Rome, and Pope Damasus and writers such as Ambrose and Prudentius wrote about her. Her tomb lies on the Via Nomentana outside Rome, where Constantina, a daughter of Constantine, later had a church built, and where her relics are still venerated.

The details of her life and death, however, come from texts written many centuries after her time and are therefore only traditional. According to them, she was about twelve or thirteen, from a noble Roman family, refused the marriage proposal of a magistrate's son, and was denounced as a Christian. She is said to have been executed, and many texts say she was beheaded or stabbed. The date usually given is the persecution under Diocletian, around 304, though some sources place it early in the third century.

Her name is included in the Roman Canon of the Mass together with a small group of female martyrs. Each year on her feast, 21 January, two lambs are blessed at the church of Sant'Agnese Fuori le Mura in Rome, and from their wool the pallia given to new archbishops are woven. The resemblance of her name to the Latin agnus, lamb, is only a coincidence of language. Her feast on 21 January remains one of the best-known days of the Roman calendar, and Roman churches mark it with the blessing of lambs each year.

Works and witness

• Martyred in Rome as a young girl, around 304 according to tradition
• Venerated in Rome since at least the fourth century
• Her tomb on the Via Nomentana has a church built by Constantina
• Her name appears in the Roman Canon of the Mass
• On 21 January, two lambs are blessed at her church in Rome

Patron of

Girls

Saints from the same country

Saint Lawrence, Saint Cecilia, Saint Sebastian, Saint Benedict of Nursia

References

• Ambrose of Milan, De Virginibus
• Prudentius, Peristephanon
• Martyrologium Romanum

Written by Anawim from documented history. Some details about ancient saints rest on tradition and are marked as such.