PELAGIA, Saint, Martyr. — She is commemorated in the Roman Martyrology and the Greek Synaxaria on June 9, but her true *dies natalis* is October 8, as attested by the Syriac Martyrology.
She suffered in Antioch during the persecution of Diocletian; a church was built over her tomb, in which St. John Chrysostom delivered a discourse. From this it is learned that P. was a girl of fifteen years; surprised alone in her house by soldiers who sought to arrest her, and fearing for her purity, by a stratagem she eluded their vigilance and leapt from a window, falling to the ground dead.
BIBL.: St. Ambrose, *De virginibus*, III, 7; PL 16, 241-42; St. John Chrysostom, *Homilia*; PG 50, 570-84; *Acta SS. Julii*, II, Paris 1867, pp. 153-62; H. Delehaye, *Les origines du culte des martyrs*, 2nd ed., Brussels 1933, p. 198; *Martyrologium Romanum*, p. 230.