Olivia of Palermo
| Saint Olivia | |
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Statue of Olivia in the Cathedral of Palermo
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| Virgin Martyr | |
| Born | 448 Palermo, Sicily |
| Died | 463 Tunis, North Africa |
| Venerated in | |
| Feast | June 10 |
| Patronage |
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Saint Olivia of Palermo (Italian: S. Oliva dì Palermo, Sicilian: Uliva di Palermu), Palermo, 448 – Tunis, 10 June 463, is a Christian virgin-martyr who was venerated as a local patron saint of Palermo, Sicily in the Middle Ages, as well as in the Sicilian towns of Monte San Giuliano, Termini Imerese, Alcamo,Pettineo and Cefalù.
Her feast day is on June 10, and she is represented as a young woman with olive branches surrounding her, holding a cross in her right hand.
Saint Olivia seems to have been sanctified by popular tradition alone as a pious local saint, since her name was not recorded historically in any mainstream Latin or Greek martyrology or Hagiology of the Church.
The oldest textual sources of her Life include a Gallo-siculo Breviary of the twelfth century, which records her memory and is still preserved in Palermo, as well as a document in vulgar Sicilian of the fourteenth century found in Termini Imerese, and a Life contained in a lectionary of the fifteenth century.
A venerable icon of Olivia also exists, perhaps of the twelfth century, which depicts Saint Olivia with saints Elias, Venera and Rosalia.
There are also references to a church being dedicated to her in Palermo since AD 1310 on the supposed site of her burial. Today this is the (Church of Saint Francis of Paola).
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Wikipedia