page_title: Saint Venera
section_title: Veneration
hierarchical_section_title: Saint Venera / Veneration
caption_attribution_description: English: Old Parish Church of St. Venera in St. Venera Square, Santa Venera, Malta This media is about Maltese cultural property with inventory number 00199.
context_page_description: Saint Venera is venerated as a Christian martyr of the 2nd century. Little is known of this saint. The date of her death is traditionally given as July 26, 143 AD.
  In the Catalogo Sanctorum, composed by Petrus de Natalibus between 1369 and 1372, he cites in Chapter 61 the name of a virgin martyr named Veneranda. According to de Natalibus, Veneranda was born in Gaul in the 2nd century and martyred in Rome during the time of Emperor Antoninus Pius.
context_section_description: After her martyrdom in Gaul, Christians are said to have transported her body to Ascoli Piceno, where it was venerated until the 4th century, and then taken by a priest named Anthimus (Antimo) to Rome on November 14.  At the end of the Middle Ages, the relics were reclaimed by Acireale, but relics associated with Venera were distributed across Sicily and Italy.
  At the beginning of the 17th century, Venera's cult flourished, when the relics of the saint were transferred from the Church of Jesus and Mary to the Cathedral of Acireale.  In 1668, the Sacred Congregation of Rites officially approved her cult.
  Records from the basilica of Santa Maria a Pugliano in Ercolano state that Pope Alexander VII donated relics associated with Veneranda and a Saint Maximus in the 17th century to the Procurator General of the Carmelites in Rome.  These were then given to Father Simone dello Spirito Santo, of the Carmelite convent of Torre del Greco, near Ercolano, establishing Veneranda's popularity and the diffusion of her cult in the area of Ercolano.
  The city of Ercolano has two churches dedicated to Veneranda, and a painting dedicated to her in the city shows her name in Greek as Aghia Paraskebe (Saint Paraskevi), which attests to an identification of Veneranda with the martyr Paraskevi of Rome, celebrated on July 26.
  Venera or Veneranda is the patroness of the Maltese town of Santa Venera.  The saint's connection to this town is in doubt.  As one source states: "Santa Venera is a very old place, much older than its name, unless they are right who declare that no such Christian saint ever existed as Venera, and that the name is simply a variant of venere, and nothing more nor less than the Italian form of the name of the goddess of love.  These people maintain that the hill-town of Aphrodisia stood on this site, and the church of Santa Venera, in the Naumachia, was a temple of Aphrodite seven hundred years before Christianity had any martyrs."
  Santa Veneranda is the patron Saint of the Arbëresh Town of Carfizzi in Calabria, Italy.
caption: The old parish church of Santa Venera, Malta
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