Margaret the Virgin
Margaret of Antioch, in the Orthodox Church Marina, (* in Pisidia; † 305 ) was a virgin and martyr at the turn of the 3rd to 4th century.
- 2.1 Remembrance
- 2.2 patronages
- 2.3 representations
Legends
Trigger for the prosecution Margaretas of Antioch seems to have been less their faith as their beauty, independent of the underlying tradition:
Variant 1
Margaret was the daughter of a pagan priest, and was raised by a Christian nurse. When the father saw the turn of the daughter to the Christian faith, he denounced them in the city prefect. Brought to justice, they aroused the desire of the judge who punished them harder than they rejected him: they should be scorched with torches and fried in oil. When she was uninjured in this procedure, this led to mass baptisms in their environment and to their execution by decapitation.
Variant 2
The other tradition sees it as a shepherdess and the city prefect (with names Olybrius ) as the one who wanted her and she rejected. Margareta was tortured in prison with iron combs and torches. Your wounds healed over again, so it happened here to an extraordinary number of conversions. Finally, Margareta was executed by decapitation.
This second tradition has ramifications, which are important for today's worship Margaretas: In prison appeared to her a giant dragon (often transformed the city prefect ) to devour them. However, the sign of the cross, which they beat, they rescued. On the way to execution they prayed for their persecutors, those who would turn to them in the future, but especially for pregnant women and women in labor. Therefore, it is also considered one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers.
Worship
Jeanne d' Arc is Margareta as one of the voices, of which it was conducted. It is one, along with St. Barbara and St. Catherine of Alexandria, the most famous of the 14 helpers, under addition of Dorothea they form the group of virgins capitales, the major virgins.
Remembrance
Your feast day is in the Catholic Church, the Protestant and Anglican July 20 in the Orthodox July 17. In ancient calendars there is also July 13. It is the day before the farmers started to which the harvest.
Patronages
The hl. Margaret is the patron saint of farmers, during pregnancy and birth, the young women, nursing mothers and women in labor. You will be called against infertility, with wounds and facial diseases and to protect " against monsters from the depths of the water ."
From Hans Fink The Kirchenpatrozinien Tyrol shows that the oldest St. Margaret 's Church was already consecrated in 812 in slot and that 22 affiliated churches and four chapels were handed over to their patronage. In Lower Austria, the parish of St. Margaret at the Sierning, consecrated by Fels am Wagram and Mühldorf - Niederranna Saint Margaret. In Upper Austria is the hl. Margarita patron saint of the parish church in Lembach Mühlkreisautobahn. In Germany the Carolingian Justin 's Church in Frankfurt -Hoechst is the 13th century St. Consecrated Margareta.
Representations
In Christian iconography, there are representations Margaretas since the 10th century (in the east ) and the 12th century ( in the West, for example, in the Cathedral of Tournai ). Margaretha is often - as on the altar of grace in Vierzehnheiligen - presented together with a dragon. Another attribute is a small cross.
Representations of Saint Margaret there by Hugo van der Goes ( Portinari Altar, 1475, Uffizi, Florence), Raphael ( 1518, Paris, Louvre) and Titian ( 1550/52, Real Sitio de San Lorenzo de El Escorial ). At one of the houses (15th century) in the Venetian Campo Santa Margherita, a sculpture of the saint is shown with a dragon at her feet. On the Gothic panel painting ( Ivo Striegel ) of St. George 's Chapel in Grange Upper Saxony bears Margareta her attribute, the dragon, on the arms, and in Surin at a Renaissance statuette she leads him on a leash.
Margareta Chapels and churches are most outside of urban areas. Christian Caminada (1876-1962), Bishop of Chur ( Switzerland ) and folklorist, comparing it to the goddess Freyja.
Caminada documented the Romansh Margaretha Song ( Canzun de Sontga Margriata " Song of the Saint Margaret " ), which was sung by the farmers working in the fields of Raetia even 150 years ago.