Late gothic wooden sculpture of saints Sophia, Faith, Hope and Charity (Eschau, 1470)
Born
Unknown
Died
304 AD Rome
Venerated in
Roman Catholic Church; Eastern Orthodox Church
Feast
May 15 (Catholic; in Germany, celebrated as Sophientag)
September 17 (Orthodox)
Attributes
palm, book, trough, and sword
Patronage
invoked against late frosts
Saint Sophia of Rome is venerated as a Christian martyr.
She is identified in hagiographical tradition with the figure of Sophia of Milan, the mother of Saints Faith, Hope and Charity, whose veneration is attested for the sixth century.
However, there are conflicting hagiographical traditions; one tradition[1] makes Sophia herself a martyr under the Diocletian Persecution (303/4).
This conflicts with the much more widespread hagiographical tradition (BHL 2966, also extant in Greek, Armenian and Georgian versions) placing Sophia, the mother of Faith, Hope, and Charity, in the time of Hadrian (second century) and reporting her dying not as a martyr but mourning for her martyred daughters.[2]
Her relics are said[citation needed] to have been translated to the convent at Eschau, Alsace in 778, and her cult spread to Germany from there.
Acta Sanctorum reports that her feast day of 15 May is attested in German, Belgian, and English breviaries of the 16th century.[3]
Roman Catholic hagiography of the early modern period attempted to identify Saint Sophia venerated in Germany with various records of martyrs named Sophia recorded in the early medieval period, among them a record from the time of Pope Sergius II (9th century) reporting an inscription mentioning a virgin martyr named Sophia at the high altar of the church of San Martino ai Monti.[3] Saxer (2000) suggests that her veneration may indeed have originated in the later sixth century based on such inscriptions of the fourth to sixth centuries.[2]
Based on her feast day on 15 May, Sophia became one of the "Ice Saints", the saints whose feast days are traditionally associated with the last possibility of frost in Central Europe.
She is known as kalte Sophie "cold Sophia" in Germany,[4] and in Slovenia as poscana Zofka "pissy Sophia"[5][6][7][8] or mokra Zofija "wet Sophia".[9][10]
Sophia is depicted on a column in the nave of St. Stephen's Cathedral, Vienna; it dates from the 15th century.[4]
^Joachim Schäfer: Sophia von Mailand. Ökumenisches Heiligenlexikon
^ abV. Saxer, "Sophia v. Rom" in: Lexikon für Theologie und Kirche vol. 9 (1993), 733f.
^ abCarnandet (ed.), Acta Sanctorum vol. 16 (1866), p. 463.
^ abEkkart Sauser (1995). "Sophia von Rom". In Bautz, Traugott (ed.). Biographisch-Bibliographisches Kirchenlexikon (BBKL) (in German). Vol. 10. Herzberg: Bautz. cols. 807–808. ISBN 3-88309-062-X.
^Baš, Angelos (2004). Slovenski etnološki leksikon. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. p. 449.
^Frančič, Franjo; Osti, Josip (2008). Kam se skrijejo metulji pred dežjem: izbrane kratke proze. Ljubljana: Mladinska knjiga. p. 78.
^Bauer, Marjan (February 10, 2012). "Češnje zorijo pozimi". Finance. Retrieved August 23, 2020.
^Fajfar, Tone (1996). Odločitev: Spomini in partizanski dnevnik. Ljubljana: Ljudska pravica. p. 480.
^Pavček, Tone (1997). Čas duše, čas telesa. Knjižna zadruga: Ljubljana. p. 198.
^Keber, Janez (1988). Leksikon imen. Celje: Mohorjeva družba. p. 398.
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