St. Barbara.

Holiday: Patrons of miners 4

* around 273 Nicomedia, today İzmit, Turkey, or Heliopolis, today Baʿlbak / Baalbek, Lebanon
† 306 (?) Nicomedia, today İzmit, Turkey

Attributes: a tower with three windows, chalice, and hosts, cannon, torch

Patrons of miners, geologists, architects, masons, stonemasons, carpenters, roofers, electricians, farmers, butchers, cooks, bell ringers, bell ringers, firefighters, undertakers, hatters, gunners, gunsmiths, pyrotechnics, booksellers, goldsmiths; girls, prisoners, dying; for the happy hour of death; in storms, fires, fevers, sudden death

St. Barbara was born around 273 in Nicomedia (Turkey) in a pagan family. For disobedience (she did not want to submit to her father and get married), her father, the tyrant Dioskur, locked her in the tower he had built for this purpose. In solitude, she began to study and secretly received baptism here. During her father’s absence, she had one more window demolished in the tower, so instead of two windows, there were three on the tower, which was to symbolize the Holy Trinity for her. Dioskur was enraged and handed her over to a civil tribunal. She was tortured terribly, and finally, her father beheaded her with a sword. Sources state that it happened on December 4, 290. Other sources say it was in 306. However, God quickly punished her persecutors. Legend says that while the angels were carrying her soul to heaven, lightning struck Dioscuri and brought him before God’s judgment. St. Barbara belonged to the so-called fourteen helpers in need.