By RAY CAVANAUGH
For the better part of 2,000 years, she remained about as obscure as a saint could remain. In fact, we don’t know for sure about the location or even the specific century of her martyrdom. But because this particular saint’s name is Corona, she has suddenly become a lot more relevant.
Her place of origin remains unknown. Most sources say that she was martyred in Roman-occupied Syria in AD 170. According to the prevailing account: A Roman soldier (now known as St. Victor) suffered torture and execution for his Christianity. Corona, reportedly the teenage wife of a different soldier and very likely a Christian herself, extended comfort to the solider in his agony and voiced her objection to such barbarous treatment. For expressing these sentiments in public, she herself became a victim.
Legend has it that she was tied between two bent palm trees. Her executioners then released the ropes holding down the tree trunks, which, by snapping back to their normal upright position, literally tore her in half.
St. Corona is so named because the Latin word for crown is “corona.” (And, for that matter, the coronavirus has its name because it has crown-like spikes when viewed beneath a microscope.)
The Roman Martyrology says that, while Corona observed Victor’s sufferings, she saw “two crowns falling from heaven, one for Victor, the other for herself.” When Corona spoke aloud about this vision of crowns, her listeners were less than sympathetic: Victor was promptly decapitated, and she was torn asunder.
Saints Victor and Corona share a feast day of May 14. Corona, who is the patron saint of treasure hunters, reportedly also has a patronage that extends to lumberjacks, because of the trees used in her grisly death.
Both these saints are venerated in the Roman, Greek, and Coptic Churches. According to the Italian Catholic website santiebeati.it, early Greek and Coptic accounts placed the martyrdom in Syria but differ on the particular cities.
Accounts written in Latin tended to place the martyrdom in Egypt or Sicily. The time period can also vary: though most versions say the martyrdom occurred during the reign of Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius (AD 161-180), other versions say it occurred during the reigns of Antoninus (138-161) or Diocletian (286-305).
The first known account of Corona surfaced in the fourth century. Starting in the sixth century, Corona was venerated in northern and central Italy, according to the Catholic News Service.
The international news agency, Reuters, reports that Corona’s relics arrived at the Aachen Cathedral in Germany in the year 997. Having rested in a tomb beneath the cathedral for almost a millennium, these relics were then placed in a shrine. The cathedral, still in operation after all these years, had actually been planning (before the pandemic) to hold an exhibition of these relics. At this point, however, it is unclear when the public will be permitted to view such an exhibition. Undaunted by the uncertainty, workers were recently polishing her shrine and preparing it for public display.
Though Germany holds Corona’s relics, Italy holds her actual remains. The website santiebeati.it relates that Corona’s bones have rested in the northern Italian town of Feltre since the ninth century. Intriguingly, surveys conducted in the twentieth century determined that the bones belonged to two different individuals, one male and one female. Thus, it is very possible that Saints Victor and Corona have been resting together throughout the centuries.
Neither of them had received widespread attention. They went unmentioned even in the exhaustive 1912 Catholic Encyclopedia, which includes many lesser-known saints.
But owing to the emergence of a microscopic mass-killer that shares her name, St. Corona now has a platform far more prominent than any exhibition could ever provide. The long-neglected saint has even surfaced recently in thoroughly secular publications, such as the New York Post, Slate.com, and Travel+Leisure.
Additionally, the Reuters news agency has just run an article that describes Corona as the “patron of epidemics.” Some scholars have reacted by pointing out that there isn’t much historical basis for her patronage extending to epidemics (this particular patronage has belonged to Saints Edmund and Rocco).
Regardless of the history, St. Corona has a name that is impossible to forget right now. Thus, many Catholics have turned to her for solace in these ominous times. And if she receives credit for miraculous turnarounds in a few of the numerous critical coronavirus cases, she very well could become a patron of epidemics.
One thing for certain is that St. Corona won’t be returning to her former obscurity anytime soon. A Star Tribune (Minneapolis) article says that newly published St. Corona prayer cards are selling by the thousands. And The Tablet (UK) newspaper reports that a Bavarian priest has announced his plan to hold an annual procession on Corona’s May 14 feast day — once the pandemic has subsided.
Chances are slim, of course, that such an event could take place this May. One can hope and pray it will be feasible next year.
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