CHRISTINA, Saint. - Her name occurs in the Hieronymian Martyrology on July 24, with the topographical designation: "in civitate Tyro", repeated in not a few recensions of the Latin Passio and in the Martyrology of Rabanus Maurus. On the other hand, the excavations carried out at Bolsena in 1880-81, in the ancient cemetery of St. Cristina, have established that there, in the 4th century, the tomb of a martyr of the same name was venerated (v. BOLSENA). This veneration cannot have been unknown to Ado (9th century), who in his Martyrology believed he could reconcile both traditions, that of Tyre and that of Bolsena, by locating Tyre near Lake Bolsena: Eodem die (July 24) apud Italiam in Tyro, quae est circa lacum Vulsinium, natale s. Christinae virginis in lacum Vulsinium iactatae. Ado's ingenuous solution, the fruit of topographical ignorance, did not settle the question.
Are there two martyrs named C., one venerated at Tyre in Phoenicia and the other at Bolsena in Italy, or is there only one? The discovery made by L. Cammelli in 1911 of the Oxyrhynchus papyrus, datable to the 5th century, with a brief fragment of the Greek Passio, has shed no more light than that, on the basis of which the Latin Passio can be regarded as a translation of the Greek one.
Various considerations, but principally the monumental remains found at Bolsena, led G. B. De Rossi to hold that there was only one C., martyred and venerated at Bolsena from the 4th century onward, but born at Tyre in Phoenicia. There is no reason to think of a translation of the martyr's body from Tyre to Bolsena, as the Bollandists proposed, but even De Rossi's opinion on the Eastern origin of C. is not very convincing. P. Paschini believes her to have been born in Italy and probably at Bolsena, while the Passio would have been written in Egypt during the 5th century, when the cult of C. had already crossed the boundaries of her homeland. It is not impossible that the Egyptian hagiographer in his work had before his eyes the account of Eusebius (De martyribus Palaestinae, 6) about the virgin Theodosia of Tyre, a martyr of the last persecution, but it cannot be excluded that the report of C.'s birth at Tyre is a product of the author's imagination. It is fair to note the great similarity of the Passio of C. with that of St. Barbara (v.). After the 11th century some recensions of the Latin Passio place the birth, martyrdom and tomb of C. at Bolsena, just as the authors of the Translationes of her body to Belgium and Westphalia suppose the sacred relics to have been carried off from Bolsena. The most credible hypothesis is that C. was born and martyred at Bolsena, where her tomb is still preserved.
C. appears in the wall mosaic of S. Apollinare Nuovo in Ravenna among the martyrs Sabina (Roman) and Anatolia and Victoria (of the Sabina), which Archbishop Agnellus had executed in the 6th century. At Bolsena her cult must probably have supplanted the very solemn amphitheatrical ludi which until the 4th century were celebrated annually at Bolsena with the participation of the populations of Tuscany and Umbria. The so-called "mysteries", animated representations of the martyrdom of C., in use during the procession on the day of the martyr's feast (July 24), are a reminder of those idolatrous institutions.
Bibliography7 works
Benedetto Pesci
ST. CHRISTINA IN FOLKLORE
The people take part in the cult of St. C. especially through the representation of the "mysteries" that takes place in Bolsena on July 24. They consist of tableau vivants, that is, in silent scenes performed by living persons (young girls, young men and men of the place) who offer themselves in solemn immobility to the eye of the spectators. The "mysteries" are performed on specially built stages, distributed at various points of the small town, and before each of them the procession that carries the image of the Saint from her church to that of the Savior stops. Each stage is veiled by a curtain, which is drawn when the procession halts before it, so as to offer for a few minutes the vision of the scene. Thus the principal episodes of the Saint's passio are represented: St. C. tossing in the lake, tormented by the "great wheel," shut in prison, set to burn in a cauldron, scourged, despising the idols, wrapped by serpents, etc. Especially this "mystery," represented with realistic vividness in that the girl who portrays the Saint actually has her neck and arms wrapped by numerous and large serpents, arouses in the mass of spectators a profound impression.
The "mysteries," which receive, with the passing of the years, the natural adaptations to taste and circumstances, do not go back beyond the 17th century. Perhaps the inspiration was offered by the sacred tragedy La trionfatrice Christina by the canon Gasparo Licco, performed with great success at Palermo on July 25, 1583, and which had fortune and diffusion. - See plate LVIII.
