Larissa and the Gothic martyrs

The Visigothic king Athanaric meant to halt the conversions that Ulfilas's preaching was multiplying among his people, and charged a chief named Winguric with ending them. The method was simple: an idol was wheeled on a cart before the tent that served them as a church, and each was summoned to come out, worship it and sacrifice. Those who obeyed were spared. On the rest the door was shut and the fire set. Three hundred and eight people died, about 375. The Greek Passion kept only twenty-one names: two priests, a monk, eleven laymen and seven laywomen — Larissa is one of these. Their names are Syrian, Cappadocian and Phrygian, baptismal names taken from the East, which tell of the ties of this Gothic Church with those of Asia Minor. Some ten years later Gaatha, widow of a peer of the realm — whom the Byzantine synaxarion calls queen — a Christian, came back with her daughter Duklida to gather the bones from the ashes and carry them to Cyzicus. Having returned to Gothia with her son Agathon, she was stoned there. The East keeps their feast together on 26 March.