Martyrdom of Saint Febronia of Nisibis

Passio sanctae Febroniae · Anonymous (Greek recension; Syriac version transmitted separately) · Greek recension 6th-7th century (martyr commemorated under Diocletian, d. c. 304) · hagiography

Greek · domain: hagiography · researched 2026-11-13

Why this is in the register

HOLLIS Primo search 'Life of Saint Febronia martyr' returns no English translation of the Greek passio: the English item is Holy Women of the Syrian Orient (Brock & Harvey, 1987/1998), which translates the Syriac Life, not the Greek; the Greek/Latin text appears only as the Acta Sanctorum chapter 'Vita et Martyrium'; other records are an Arabic version (2002) (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Life%20of%20Saint%20Febronia%20martyr&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 Confirming query 'Acta Sanctorum Febronia' returns the AASS 'Vita et Martyrium' chapter (language Greek; Latin) plus Latin commentary, no English rendering (https://hollis.harvard.edu/discovery/search?query=any,contains,Acta%20Sanctorum%20Febronia&tab=Everything&search_scope=MyInst_and_CI&vid=01HVD_INST:HVD2&offset=0 ANF/NPNF tables of contents (ccel.org) contain no Febronia.

A violent and widely transmitted martyrdom of a young woman of Nisibis; one of the few Greek martyr acts with a close Syriac twin, so the two recensions are usually compared. English exists only for the Syriac version (Sebastian Brock and Susan Harvey, Holy Women of the Syrian Orient, 1987). The Greek recension is available in Acta Sanctorum and in the Bollandist-derived editions; no English translation of the Greek text was located.

Existing translations recorded

None recorded in English. Non-English versions, where they exist, are named in the evidence above.

Electronic text

No open electronic text was verified for this work. The Greek/Coptic/Geʿez may exist only in a print or subscription edition (Migne, CSCO, TLG, CMCL).

Scanned witnesses

Scan search: open scan — 1 candidate(s). AASS Junii V prints the Greek passio with the Latin version in parallel columns, so the images are a genuine witness and the OCR is worthless for the Greek. The other three IA 'Acta Sanctorum Junii' items (bub_gb_8xx1AlJJNoIC 1741, bub_gb_wuszA2s1CGMC 1743, bub_gb_EgbN-9c47y8C 1746) contain Febronia only in their general indexes (1-2 hits, HTTP 200), not the acta. HMML/EMML has no Greek Febronia record reachable (vhmml.org search path HTTP 404); BnF SRU returns no Greek witness.

Harvard Hollis

Hollis query: Martyrdom of Saint Febronia of Nisibis — 1 record(s); match basis author_title_unquoted.

Sources checked

• HOLLIS search — Acta Sanctorum Febronia
• HOLLIS search — Life of Saint Febronia martyr

Cite: Tergwame, “Martyrdom of Saint Febronia of Nisibis” (greek gap dossier), 2026. https://naxiai.com/christian/gaps/greek-anonymous-passio-febroniae