Mercuria
martyr at Alexandria
Feast: 12 December (not on the universal Roman calendar; kept in the Roman Martyrology or local calendars)
Who they were
Commemoration of the holy martyrs of Alexandria Epimachus and Alexander, who under the emperor Decius, after a long imprisonment and various tortures, were at last put on the pyre for faith in Christ. Together with them the holy women Ammonaria, a virgin, Mercuria, Dionysia and another woman suffered their passion: the judge, ashamed that women should get the better of him and afraid that, even by subjecting them to unheard-of tortures, he might be overcome by their steadfastness, ordered that they be beheaded at once.
The miracles
There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.
Why that counted as sanctity
The Roman Martyrology remembers her on 12 December as a woman of Alexandria beheaded under the emperor Decius after the judge failed to break her steadfastness.
- Roman Martyrology, 12 December (Italian Bishops' Conference, Santo del giorno)
- Wikidata R8fc041b4 — dates, feast day and identifiers (CC0)
Checked against the sources listed on 22 September 2026. Corrections welcome.