Today the Church remembers Saint Leocritia, laywoman, of Cordoba, a martyr for the Faith during the Moorish occupation of southern Spain.
Ora pro nobis.
Since the early eighth century, southern Spain was under the rule of the Moors. They were a Muslim people mostly from northern Africa who had invaded the Iberian peninsula, as well as Malta and Sicily. Cordoba in the Andalusia region of south central Spain was their capital. Under this Islamic rule, Christians were surprisingly not forced to convert, but they were highly taxed on all their properties. No disrespect (“blasphemy”) for their founder Mohammed was permitted, and anyone attempting to convert someone to Christianity (“apostasy”) faced the death penalty. Many Christians had moved north for safety, and the Christian population was, therefore, a small one, although Cordoba was one of the largest cities in Europe at the time.
Leocritia was a young woman who was the child of prominent Moorish parents living in Cordoba, born in the 840s AD. In 859 AD, after being taught the tenets of the Faith by a relative, she converted from Islam to Christianity and chose to be baptized. When her parents learned this, they were enraged and locked her in her own home to keep her from any further Christian influence. She wrote to Father Eulogius, a well known priest who had been elected bishop for his tireless work of teaching and evangelization, but who had not yet been installed as bishop at Toledo, asking what she should do. He advised her to be obedient to her parents, as she was a minor, but to look for an opportunity to flee north out of Muslim controlled territory. When she attended a wedding with her family, she saw her opportunity to escape, slipped away unnoticed and found her way to Father Eulogius. He was able to protect her for a time by changing her whereabouts regularly with Christians who shielded her from the Moorish authorities. One day, her location became known, and she and all who had helped her were arrested, including Eulogius. Both Eulogius and Leocritia were flogged and then put in prison, denied food and drink and offered their freedom if they would renounce Christianity. Both refused to abandon the Faith. Eulogius was beheaded on March 11, 859, and Leocritia met the same fate on March 15. Leocritia’s body was discarded into the Guadalquivir River, a river in Cordoba where numerous Christian martyrs before her had also been dumped. The Christian faithful secretly retrieved her remains, which were brought to Oviedo Cathedral about twenty years later. She shares a reliquary there with Eulogius, which can be venerated to this day in northern Spain.
In the years 851 to 859 AD, forty-eight Christians were put to death in Moor-occupied Spain (then known as Al-Andalus), all charged in some way with blasphemy or apostasy. They are collectively known as the Martyrs of Cordoba. Leocritia was beheaded on 15 March 859 AD after imprisonment, starvation, and being scourged, steadfastly refusing to deny Jesus.
Almighty God, by whose grace and power your holy martyr Leocritia triumphed over suffering and was faithful even to death: Grant us, who now remember her in thanksgiving, to be so faithful in our witness to you in this world, that we may receive with her the crown of life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, forever and ever.
Amen.
