Saint Agatha
Saint Agatha (Agata in Italian) is the patron saint of Catania and every year she is celebrated here with several weeks of religious, civil and popular events.
Saint Agatha was born in Catania at the beginning of the 3rd century, around the year 235, from a rich and noble Christian family.
At that time Catania was a very flourishing city of the Roman Empire, also thanks to its port and its geographical position in the middle of Mediterranean Sea.
That time was also a time of persecutions against Christians, who were denounced and had to publicly deny their faith. Otherwise they would have been arrested, tortured and killed.
Agatha is a Greek name which means "the good one" and we can assume that she was brought up according to Christian virtues, goodheartedness, prayer, disinterest for earthly riches, in contrast with same age girls of her social status.
Since she was a very young girl she wanted to dedicate herself to Christ and at about 15 the bishop of Catania consecrated her during a ceremony, giving her a red tunic. She was a beautiful girl and one day the governor of Catania, Quinziano, saw her and become infatuated with her, ordered to arrest her, wishing to seduce her. According to the tradition, to avoid being arrested, Agatha stayed some time away from Catania and several places claim to have been her refuge. One story says that Agatha stopped in a place for a rest and an olive tree immediately sprang and she could shelter and eat its fruits. To remember this, on Saint Agatha's day it's a tradition to eat special almond sweets, green and shaped like olives, called "olivette di Sant'Agata" (little Saint Agatha olives).
Back to the story... When Agatha went back home, she was found easily and taken to the court. The governor tried to seduce her without success, so he decided to "re-educate" her with the help of a courtesan, Afrodisia, to make her more willing. Despite a month of temptations and immoralities, Afrodisia had no success and gave Agatha back to Quinziano. Very angry, Quinziano ordered to bring her to trial. Agatha refused to deny her Christian faith and to sacrifice to the pagan gods and therefore was put in prison, then subjected to horrible tortures which only seemed to give her more strength, and eventually Quinziano ordered to amputate her breast. This explains the way Saint Agatha is always portrayed, with her breast on a plate and big tongs.
Agatha was taken back to her cell and that night Saint Peter visited her and through a miracle, healed her wounds. A few days later, Quinziano, upset by the miracle, ordered to kill her. She was placed on burning coals and at that time a violent earthquake shook the city, she was taken back to prison where she died a few hours later.It was the 5th of February 251. Her veil didn't burn and, later on, many times it was used in processions and it's said to have saved Catania from recurring earthquakes, eruptions from the Etna, from the plague and other threats.
One year after her death, in 252, during an eruption, a lava flow from the volcano Etna was threatening the city. During a procession they carried her veil was in front of the lava flow which stopped. Since then Saint Agatha has been the patron saint of Catania.
