Eufemia di Ourense

Who they were

According to tradition, towards the end of the eleventh century a shepherd girl miraculously found the body of a Saint Eufemia near the Portuguese border; it was placed under the altar of a church dedicated to Saint Marina and later, under Bishop Pietro Seguin (1157-69), carried to the cathedral of Ourense. Her veneration was promoted by succeeding bishops and she became renowned for healings, attested by a privilege of King Ferdinand II in 1160 and by the writings of Bishop Alfonso (1174-1213); her relics were solemnly enshrined again in 1720 by Bishop Giovanni Muñoz de la Cueva, together with those of the martyrs Facondo and Primitivo. Her veneration is also widespread in the neighbouring diocese of Tui.

In the sixteenth century some Spanish forgers invented a Life for her identifying her with Eufemia of Chalcedon, a claim without foundation. Modern scholarship, noting the absence of any ancient account of her life or martyrdom, regards the later legend of a Roman-era martyrdom in the Limia region as borrowing elements from the much older and more widely known story of Eufemia of Chalcedon, whose feast also falls on 16 September.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: she has been honoured as a saint since before the Church's formal processes began.

Why that counted as sanctity

Galician saint whose relics, discovered near the Portuguese border in the eleventh century, were enshrined at Ourense and became renowned for healings; feast 16 September.