Margaret the Virgin

Margaret the Virgin, also known as Margaret of Antioch (in Pisidia), virgin and martyr, is celebrated as a saint by the Roman Catholic and Anglican Churches on July 20; and on July 17 in the Orthodox Church. Her historical existence has been qustioned; she was declared apocryphal by Pope Gelasius I in 494, but devotion to her revived in the West with the Crusades. She was reputed to have promised very powerful indulgences to those who wrote or read her life, or invoked her intercessions; these no doubt helped the spread of her cultus. "Margaret of Antioch" The Oxford Dictionary of Saints. David Hugh Farmer. Oxford University Press 2003. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Accessed 16 June 2007
According to the Golden Legend, she was a native of Antioch, daughter of a pagan priest named Aedesius. She was scorned by her father for her Christian faith, and lived in the country with a foster-mother keeping sheep. Olybrius, the praeses orientis (Governor of the Roman Diocese of the East), offered her marriage at the price of her renunciation of Christianity. Upon her refusal, she was cruelly tortured, during which various miraculous incidents occurred. One of these involved being swallowed by Satan in the shape of a dragon, from which she escaped alive when the cross she carried irritated the dragon's innards. The Golden Legend, in an atypical moment of scepticism, describes this last incident as "apocryphal and not to be taken seriously" (trans. Ryan, 1.369). She was put to death in A.D. 304.
The Eastern Orthodox Church knows Margaret as Saint Marina, and celebrates her feast day on July 17. She has been identified with Saint Pelagia – "Marina" being the Latin equivalent of the Greek name "Pelagia" – who, according to a legend, was also called Margarita. We possess no historical documents on St Margaret as distinct from St Pelagia. The Greek Marina came from Antioch, Pisidia (as opposed to Antioch of Syria), but this distinction was lost in the West.
An attempt has been made, but without success, to prove that the group of legends with which that of Saint Margaret is connected is derived from a transformation of the pagan divinity Aphrodite into a Christian saint. The problem of her identity is a purely literary question. 
 
The cultus of Saint Margaret became very widespread in England, where more than 250 churches are dedicated to her, most famously, St. Margaret's, Westminster, the parish church of the British Houses of Parliament in London. Some consider her a patron saint of pregnancy. In art, she is usually pictured escaping from, or standing above, a dragon. 
She is recognized as a saint by the Roman Catholic Church, being listed as such in the Roman Martyrology for July 20.Martyrologium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 2001 ISBN 88-209-7210-7) She was also included from the twelfth to the twentieth century among the saints to be commemorated wherever the Roman Rite was celebrated,See General Roman Calendar as in 1954 but was then removed from that list because of the entirely fabulous character of the stories told of her.Calendarium Romanum (Libreria Editrice Vaticana, 1969), p. 130 Margaret is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers, and is one of the saints who spoke to Joan of Arc.
==References==
*Acta Sanctorum, July, v. 24—45
*Bibliotheca hagiographica. La/ma (Brussels, 1899), n. 5303—53r3
*Frances Arnold-Forster, Studies in Church Dedications (London, 1899), i. 131—133 and iii. 19.
==External links==
*Saint Margaret and the Dragon links and pictures (more than 45), from Dragons in Art and on the Web
*Middle English life of St. Margaret of Antioch, edited with notes by Sherry L. Reames
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Category:3rd-century births
Category:304 deaths
Margaret the Virgin
Margaret of Antioch
Category:Syrian Roman Catholic saints
Category:Saints from Anatolia
Category:Anatolian Roman Catholic saints
Margaret
Category:Folk saints
Category:4th-century Christian martyr saints
Category:4th-century Romans
Category:4th-century Christian female saints
Category:Eastern Orthodox saints
ca:Margarida d'Antiòquia
cs:Markéta Antiochijská
de:Margareta von Antiochia
es:Margarita de Antioquía
fr:Marguerite d'Antioche
ko:안티오키아의 마르가리타
it:Margherita di Antiochia
he:מרגרטה הבתולה
ka:წმინდა მარინე
hu:Antiochiai Szent Margit
nl:Margaretha van Antiochië
ja:アンティオキアのマルガリタ
no:Margareta av Antiokia
nrm:Sainte Mèrdgitte
pl:Małgorzata z Antiochii Pizydyjskiej
ro:Marina din Antiohia
ru:Маргарита Антиохийская
sk:Svätá Margaréta z Antiochie
fi:Marina (suurmarttyyri)
sv:Margareta (helgon)
th:มาร์กาเร็ตแห่งอันติโอก
uk:Свята Марина
wa:Sinte Magrite
zh:聖瑪嘉烈