The Choir of the New Martyrs also brightens the canon of our Church in its own way. Thousands of men and women, old, young, and even young, confessed their faith in Christ and sealed it with their blood and their lives.
The holy New Martyr Kyranna is one of them. She lived in difficult times for the Church and our Nation, in the dark years of Turkish rule, where the barbarian Asians exercised the power of life and death over enslaved Christians and applied the “law of the sword”! She was born in Abyssaka, Thessaloniki, today’s Ossa Lagkada. She was gifted by God with miraculous external beauty and rare spiritual greatness. She stood out from all the other girls in the village for her modesty and sobriety.
Everyone loved and respected her, except for the half-good devil, who envied her purity. Because he could not lead her into lewd thoughts and sinful choices, he instilled in a local Turkish police commander and tax collector, a janissary, a fierce love passion for the modest and beautiful Christian girl. He tried with various flattery to conquer her. He showered her with money, jewelry, dresses and positions, to no avail. He then used threats of cruel and inhuman torture, even death, but she remained unconvinced and repelled the degenerate Turk.
As long as Kyranna refused the immoral proposals of the janissary, his sinful passion for her grew. Disappointed, however, by the daughter's refusal, a terrible hatred for her was born within him, which reached the point of her destruction. He had other janissaries arrest her and take her to Thessaloniki to be tried, for allegedly breaking her promise to marry him and to convert. Her parents followed her with tears and prayers for the unjust passion of their child. The interrogators treated her at first with their favorite tactics, of flattery and then with intimidation and threats. But Kyranna remained heroically bold and unruffled before them. She confessed with courage that she was a Christian, that she had Christ as her bridegroom, to whom her body and soul belonged. For His love she was willing to shed her blood and give her life. That their flattery, much less torture, would not stand in the way of her love for Christ, the true God. After her courageous confession, she fell silent, bowed her head and with modesty began to pray mentally to the Lord, to strengthen her in the great trial that awaited her.
The Turkish interrogators, seeing her heroism and unwavering opinion, felt ashamed and became beasts with their anger. They threw her into the darkest and dampest cell of the prison. The amorous Janissary received permission from the prison director to enter her cell at any time he wanted to torture her. Other Janissaries would enter with him, who would burst out on her with particular ferocity. They would beat her, kick her, hang her by her lush hair for hours from the ceiling of the cell, until she fainted. At night, the prison guard would hang her by her armpits all night, in the winter cold, so that she could not sleep. But she not only endured the torture with unprecedented fortitude, but she seemed to face it with joy and satisfaction for the sake of Christ!
But in the same prison there were other Christian prisoners, men and women, and with them some Turkish women, who saw the martyrdom of Kyranna and criticized the inhumane jailer, saying that he did not fear God and was torturing an innocent woman. But he became more cruel and the torture continued for a week.
The next day the guard became more aggressive and ferocious. He grabbed Kyranna, hung her with chains and began to beat her mercilessly with a board. The other prisoners began to shout and protest, including the Turkish prisoners. The guard began to tremble all over and fell to the ground face down, crying bitterly.
But at the same moment the saint breathed her last, surrendering her soul to Christ, whom she loved so much and gave Him her life, as she was hanging, without anyone realizing it. Just at dawn, a blinding light descended from the roof of the prison and bathed the body of the saint, illuminating the entire prison. The prisoners woke up in fear and began to shout and pray! The Turkish women and some Jewish prisoners shouted that “the pity of poor Romia will burn us”! The prison guard arrived, who, trembling, lowered her body from the gallows and ascertained her death. The light began to diminish and an unearthly fragrance flooded the prison. The guard covered the honest relic with respect and glorified God, who had made him worthy to see such miraculous events. Apparently he repented and became a Christian, probably a "crypto-Christian."
When dawn broke, the saint's perfection and the miraculous light flashed throughout Thessaloniki. The Turks felt ashamed and gave permission to the Romans to receive the saint's body and bury it according to their own customs. They buried it outside Thessaloniki, after distributing her blood-stained garments in pieces for blessing and sanctification. It was February 28, 1751. On this day, our Church honors her sacred memory. Behold, then, the heroism of the holy women of our Church, equal to that of the holy men!
