Description
Exclusive Gift Set 26 – St Apollonia Patron for Teeth
Exclusive Gift Set 26 – St Apollonia Patron for Teeth was one of a group of virgin martyrs. They suffered in Alexandria during a local uprising against the Christians. According to church tradition, her torture included having all of her teeth violently pulled out or shattered. For this reason, she is popularly regarded as the patroness of dentistry. Also, for those suffering from toothache or other dental problems.
Historians have claimed that in the last years of Emperor Philip during the fury of the Alexandrian mob rose to a great height. When one of their poets prophesied a calamity, they committed bloody outrages on the Christians.
Evidence of the martyrdom
Dionysius, Bishop of Alexandria (247–265), relates the sufferings of his people. This in a letter addressed to Fabius, Bishop of Antioch. He described how a Christian man and woman, Metras and Quinta, were seized and killed by the mob. Also, the houses of several other Christians pillaged, Dionysius continues:
At that time Apollonia, ( a deaconess) held in high esteem. These men seized her also and by repeated blows broke all her teeth. They then erected outside the city gates a pile of wood They threatened to burn her alive if she refused to repeat after them impious words. Given, at her own request, a little freedom, she sprang quickly into the fire and burned to death.
The City of God writings
Apollonia and a whole group of early martyrs did not await the death they threatened with. Augustine of Hippo touches on this question in the first book of “The City of God”, apropos suicide:
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