A Christian maiden of Carthage carried off into slavery, who kept her faith and purity in her servitude and, refusing to join in a pagan sacrifice on Corsica, was crucified for Christ.
Feast Day
July 16
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The Holy and Glorious Virgin Martyr Julia of Carthage
Life
Julia of Carthage is venerated as a virgin martyr who was born in Carthage, in Roman North Africa, into a Christian family. While still a girl she was carried off from her home and sold into slavery, yet she preserved her faith and her purity throughout her servitude, keeping the fasts and devoting herself to prayer despite her master's pagan household.
On a voyage with her master, the ship at which she served put in at the island of Corsica during a pagan festival. When Julia refused to take part in the idolatrous celebration and openly confessed herself a Christian, she was put to death by crucifixion. By tradition her relics were later recovered and, in about the year 763, translated to a women's monastery at Brescia. She is honored among the pre-schism Western saints and is commemorated on July 16.
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Captivity and Witness
According to the synaxarion, Julia was taken captive while still young and sold into slavery, being carried off to Syria. She served her master faithfully and is remembered for guarding her chastity, observing the Church's fasts, and praying frequently, refusing every effort to draw her into the worship of idols.
When her master set out with his merchandise — accounts name Gaul as the destination — the ship stopped on its way at Corsica, where the master joined a local pagan festival while Julia remained aboard. The tradition relates that the Corsicans plied the merchant and his companions with wine until they fell into a drunken sleep, then seized Julia from the ship. Unafraid to acknowledge that she was a Christian, she was crucified by the pagans.
Relics and Veneration
The synaxarion relates that an angel of the Lord made the martyr's death known to the monks of a monastery on a nearby island, who took her body and buried it in a church within their monastery. About the year 763 her relics were transferred to a women's monastery in the city of Brescia.
Julia is venerated as a patron saint of Corsica. Her commemoration in the Orthodox Church falls on July 16; in the Western tradition she is also kept on May 22.
Dating
The sources of her life are early and somewhat divergent. Historians have assigned her martyrdom to either the fifth or the seventh century, and Western accounts associate her enslavement with the upheavals that followed the Vandal conquest of Carthage in 439. The present entry follows the fifth-century dating.
