Saints Anatolia and Victoria

The sisters Anatolia and Victoria were arranged, in the 3rd century, to be married to Roman noblemen. Both women resisted, both were denounced as Christians, and both were ultimately executed.

Anatolia was locked in a cell with a poisonous snake that refused to bite her. When a soldier was sent in to kill her, the snake attacked him instead, but she saved him. He converted to Christianity and, when another guard came to finish the job, was martyred alongside her.

Victoria was actually sent into exile, first. But after she saved a village from a dragon in return for the people's conversion, she was outed as a Christian again, stabbed, and buried in the dragon's former cave.

Today, her body rests in Rome, in the Santa Maria della Vittoria church. As revealed in this iconic Morbid Anatomy post, the wax effigy of Victoria on display contains her actual, subtly visible skeleton.

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