Eugenia of Rome is venerated as a nun-martyr of the early Church, commemorated in the Eastern Orthodox calendar on December 24, the eve of the Nativity. By tradition she was a Roman by birth who was raised at Alexandria, where her father Philip had been appointed Prefect of Egypt under the emperor Commodus (180-192). The synaxarion relates that she was noted for her beauty and learning and rejected the many suitors who sought her hand, having resolved to preserve her virginity.
According to the tradition, Eugenia was drawn to Christianity after becoming acquainted with the Epistles of the Apostle Paul, and she concealed her new faith from her parents. Taking with her two companions, Protus and Hyacinthus, she left Alexandria secretly by night disguised in men's clothing, passing as a eunuch under the name Eugene, and entered the monastic life among the monks. She and her companions were baptized by a bishop named Elias (also given as Helenus), who is said to have received a vision of her identity yet accepted her into the community.
Her concealment was undone when a woman named Melanthia, having conceived a passion for the supposed young monk and been rebuffed, brought a false accusation against Eugenia before the Prefect. Summoned before the very father who did not recognize her, Eugenia disclosed both her innocence and her identity as his daughter. The tradition holds that her father Philip thereupon embraced Christianity; he is said to have suffered death afterward at Alexandria. Eugenia and her household subsequently went to Rome.
The accounts place her martyrdom at Rome amid the persecutions of the mid-third century, under the emperors Valerian and Gallienus. She is said to have been preserved through successive attempts on her life and finally beheaded by the sword; the synaxarion relates that she was put to death on the Feast of the Nativity, in keeping with a promise she had received. Scholars note that Eugenia does not appear in the earliest Roman martyr catalogues and regard her surviving acts as a tradition elaborated with legendary detail.
