PARASKIVA (PARASCEVE), saint. — Sister of s. Eutimio, bishop of Madyta, born ca. 1023 at Kallicratia, Epivat, and Mesembria (Thrace) on the Black Sea, died at Epivat ca. 1050. At the age of fifteen she entered a monastery at Chalcedon, where she spent five years; after another five years spent in the desert of the Jordan, she withdrew to Epivat. She was buried on the shore of the Black Sea. Later, the inhabitants of the town found her remains there intact and brought them back to Epivat.
The emperor of the Vlach-Bulgarians, Giovanni Asen II (1219–41), carried the sacred relics to Tirnovo, to the church of the Forty Martyrs. Baiazet I gave them to Mircea the Great, prince of Wallachia, but following the victory at Nicopolis (1396) he took them back and presented them to the knjaghina Angelina of Serbia. Solimano II (1520–66), transforming the central church of Belgrade into a mosque, had the relics, together with other sacred treasures, sold to the patriarch of Constantinople for 12,000 ducats. From there, in 1641, Basilio Lupu, prince of Moldavia, took them, paying a total of 2,516,000 “aspri” for them, and placed them in the church of the Three Hierarchs at Jassy. The sacred relics were miraculously spared from a fire during the night of 26–27 December 1888. The Saint’s feast is celebrated on 14 October.
P. is the most popular saint in the Balkans and among the Romanians and Slavs under the corresponding name of Piatnizza (=die quinta, Friday). Among the Greeks, her popularity seems to be connected with a devotion to Good Friday. Among the Romanians, she must have come into contact with s. Vineri, an unknown saint who has ancient churches in the major cities, and with the “s. Vineri” of popular tales (Friday or Venus), a kind of fairy or chthonic goddess. The devotion to Good Friday seems likewise to be connected with the P. of Novgorod, since it is impossible to identify her with other martyrs of the same name.
Petre Vălimăreanu