Saint Tatiana of Rome was the daughter of a Roman civil servant who was secretly Christian, and raised his daughter in the faith. This was dangerous, and one day the jurist Ulpian captured Tatiana and attempted to force her to make a sacrifice to Apollo. She prayed, and miraculously, an earthquake destroyed the Apollo statue and part of the temple.
Tatiana was then blinded, and beaten for two days, before being brought to a circus and thrown into the pit with a hungry lion. But the lion did not touch her and lay at her feet. She was then sentenced to death, and after being tortured, Tatiana was beheaded with a sword on January 12, around AD 225 or 230.
The miracles performed by Saint Tatiana are said to have converted many people to the fledgling religion. Her skull was translated in 1955 from Bistrița Monastery to the Cathedral of Saint Demetrius in Craiova, Romania, and is enshrined with the relics of Saints Sergius and Bacchus and those of Patriach Nephon II of Constantinople.
Saint Tatiana is patron saint of students. In Belarus, Russia, and Ukraine, Tatiana Day is semi-formally celebrated as “Students’ Day.”
Sources:
Attwater, Donald and Catherine Rachel John. The Penguin Dictionary of Saints. 3rd edition. New York: Penguin Books, 1993.
https://www.catholic.org/saints/saint.php?saint_id=2161
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatiana_of_Rome
