Zlata of Maglen

Saint Zlata of Maglen (Macedonian: Света Великомаченичка Злата Мегленска, Bulgarian: Света Великомъченица Злата Мъгленска, Greek: Αγία Χρυσή; died October 18, 1795) is an 18th-century Eastern Orthodox saint and new martyr.

Zlata was born in the eighteenth century in the village of Slatina, in the province of Meglen (today Chrysi, Greece), to a poor, peasant family with three other daughters. Once when Zlata went out to get water, some Turks seized her and took her to their home. When one of them urged her to become a Muslim and be his wife, Zlata replied: "I believe in Christ, and Him alone do I know as my Bridegroom. I will never deny Him, even though you subject me to a thousand tortures and cut me into pieces." When her parents and sisters found her, her parents said to her: "O daughter, have mercy on yourself and on us, your parents and sisters; deny Christ in words only, so that we can all be happy, for Christ is merciful. He would forgive such a sin, committed due to the necessities of life." Her parents, sisters, and relatives wept. However, Zlata resisted this. She answered them: "When you counsel me to deny Christ the true God, you are no longer my parents or my sisters. I have the Lord Jesus Christ as my father, the Theotokos as my mother, and the saints as my brothers and sisters." The Turks then cast her into prison for three months, flogging her every day. Finally, they suspended her upside down and lit a fire, to suffocate her with the smoke, but she survived. At last they hanged her from a tree and cut her into small pieces. Thus, this died on October 18, 1796. Pieces of her relics were taken by Christians to their homes for a blessing. Bulgarian Orthodox Church celebrates her feast day on October 18; the Greek, the Russian, the Serbian and the Macedonian Orthodox churches - on October 13. Her hagiography was written by Nicodemus the Hagiorite. In Bulgaria and Macedonia Saint Zlata is often depicted as young woman, wearing a traditional folk costume. In Bulgaria Saint Zlata is patron saint of all the Bulgarians, who live abroad.