St. Christina of Bolsena

**Feast Day:** July 24 **Titles:** Virgin and Martyr Saint Christina of Bolsena (c. 287–304 AD) was a virgin martyr whose cult has been venerated at Bolsena since the fourth century. Her tomb in the underground grotto beneath the Basilica di Santa Cristina became one of central Italy's most important pilgrimage sites, and it was at the altar above her sarcophagus that the 1263 Eucharistic Miracle occurred. According to tradition, Christina was the daughter of Urbano, a Roman magistrate serving under Emperor Diocletian in the lakeside town of Bolsena (ancient Volsinii). Her father placed her in a tower surrounded by gold and silver idols, intending her to become a pagan priestess. Instead, after receiving angelic visitations, she converted to Christianity, smashed the idols, and distributed the precious metal pieces to the poor. Enraged, Urbano subjected his daughter to escalating tortures: scourging, imprisonment, being thrown into Lake Bolsena with a millstone around her neck (she miraculously walked on water, leaving footprints in a basalt stone still venerated at the altar), burning on an iron wheel, five days in a furnace, a pit of venomous snakes, and immersion in boiling oil. When her tongue was cut out, she continued speaking clearly and threw the severed tongue into her persecutor's face, blinding him. She was finally martyred by arrows piercing her heart. Her fourth-century sarcophagus remains in the grotto beneath the basilica, now displaying Benedetto Buglioni's glazed terracotta statue of *Santa Cristina Giacente*—Christina lying in death. The early Christian catacombs adjacent to her tomb, rediscovered in 1880, contain an inscription reading "CRESTINA," confirming the antiquity of her cult. The *Misteri di Santa Cristina*, performed annually on July 23–24, ranks among Italy's oldest religious celebrations. For over five centuries, Bolsena citizens have enacted ten living tableaux depicting her martyrdom, a tradition that has continued without interruption.