The miracles of Saint Juliana of Nicomedia

Synthèse :

According to the martyrologies and ancient accounts, Saint Juliana was born around the year 311 in Nicomedia, Asia Minor (ancient Greek city, today part of Turkey). Her father, Africanus, was a prominent pagan who was hostile to Christians. Juliana understoodby reasoning that there was only true god, the one who had made Heaven and Earth. She prayed every day and attended Christian services.

At the age of nine, she was betrothed to a young man from Nicomedia named Eleusius, who became prefect of the city a few years later and asked her to marry him when she was eighteen. Juliana replied: "If you believe in my God and worship the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit, I will take you as my husband; if not, look for a wife elsewhere." Juliana's father, to whom Eleusius reported this reply, flew into a rage. He summoned his daughter and demanded that she immediately consent to marry the man to whom she had been betrothed for so long. She repeated the reply she had sent to Eleusius. Africanus only redoubled his anger and immediately had her stripped and beaten. The saint nevertheless persisted in her refusal. Seeing that coercion was useless, her father handed her over to Eleusius.

Eulesius first tried to persuade her. "Embrace the religion of Jesus Christ,"she told him, "and I will be your wife. -But if I do that," he replied, "the emperor will know, he will dismiss me and have my head cut off." "If you fear amortal sovereign whose throne is but dust,"replied Juliana,"how can you force me to deny the immortal Sovereign?" At these words, the prefect changed his mind and tried to wrest from her by violence what he could not obtain by gentleness. Three soldiers whipped her repeatedly until they were tired, but Juliana resisted. Eleusius had her suspended by the hair for an hour, but she did not change her resolve either. He then ordered her to be stripped naked and thrown into a fiery furnace, but seeing that the fire did her no harm, he had her bound by the feet and thrown into prison.

She then prayed a fervent prayer to God, thanking him for having protected her in this miraculous way, and asking him for the grace to remain just as unshakeable in her faith and in her resolutions in the midst of the new torments awaiting her. Eleusius had her brought before his court again and asked her how she had been able to withstand all the torments she had just endured. "It is through my faith," she replied, "that I found the courage to resist all your cruelties." Thus driven to the height of his fury, he delivered her to the most barbaric torments. Despite this, the saint felt no pain, according to a witness to her martyrdom, and she gave thanks to God. At the sight of so many wonders, and hearing her pray to God in this way, all her executioners and the people present, who numbered one hundred and thirty, were converted. Emperor Maximian, having been informed of this, had them all beheaded.

However, Eleusius' cruelty was not satisfied. He had her immersed in a cauldron of molten lead. She found herself in it as if in a bath of fresh water, and the molten lead began to gush out of the cauldron, burning seventy-five people. Euleusius could do no more: he tore off his clothes and ordered her to be beheaded. Juliana went to the place of her execution, offering words of encouragement to those who had just converted.

Her relics were taken to various cities, including Naples and Cumae. From there some relics were brought back to France during the occupation of the Kingdom of Naples by Charles of Anjou, brother of King Saint Louis of France.

Saint Juliana at Val-Saint-Germain

Around 1204, a Breton nobleman returning from the Crusades obtained the precious head of Saint Juliana in Constantinople and took it back home. Local tradition has it that, falling suddenly very ill, he stopped at Val-Saint-Germain and vowed, if he recovered, to leave the relic there and build a church. Having recovered his health, he kept his promise. This is the origin of the church we see today.

In the 18th century, at least 30,000 pilgrims from over four hundred parishes around Paris came to Val-Saint-Germain every year to pray to the saint, who cured fevers and epidemics such as cholera. Children who are sick or walking late are entrusted to her care. She is also invoked for the pains of childbirth.

By virtue of a privilege first granted for seven years by Pope Clement XII in 1734, and then renewed in perpetuity through the mediation of Cardinal Caprara on 12 February 1805, all the faithful who visit the church of Val-Saint-Germain, go to confession, receive communion and pray for the Holy Church can earn a plenary indulgence.

Forty metres south-east of the church, you can still see the miraculous fountain of Saint Juliana, with the bust of the saint. Each parish that came on pilgrimage used to leave a "stump", i.e a candle holder dedicated to her. This tradition continued throughout the 19th century, and the church at Le Val still has an impressive collection of these "stumps".

The brotherhood of Saint Juliana spread throughout the south of Paris, which is why a large number of churches in the region have a chapel dedicated to her. One of them is the Basilica of Notre-Dame-de-Bonne-Garde, in Longpont-sur-Orge. In Essonne alone, no fewer than thirty-two churches still have a statue, painting or stained glass window depicting the saint.

The miracles of Saint Juliana

People came from far and wide to pray to Saint Juliana, knowing that she granted numerous miracles in the Val. Among the documented miracles is one that took place in 1733. A little girl from Angerville, aged seven, had completely lost the use of her right arm. All the surgeons had said that she would be crippled for life, but she regained the use of her arm while a mass was being offered for her.

On 22 November 1793, during the French Revolution, a People's representative who was planning to have the church demolished - as the cult of these relics made it a "fanatical hotbed" to the revolutionaries - was seized with such violent stomach pains that he fled the church in a hurry.

In 1994, I myself witnessed a small miracle from Saint Juliana. As the assistant vicar in Dourdan, I organised a "spiritual adventure raid" with a small group of young people from 28 August to 4 September. The idea was to visit all the holy places in our region on foot over an eight-day period, remembering their history and discovering and marvelling at the richness of our local Christian roots and traditions. After recounting the life of Saint Juliana and introducing the pilgrims to the miraculous spring just forty metres from the church, we had planned to spend the night in an annex of the rectory. But Laurence and Olivier Bonnassies, who joined us at the last minute, decided to sleep at the foot of the fountain. As newlyweds, they had planned to be in Brussels for their work and studies, but an unexpected turn of events led them to change their mind, and they decided to devote a year to the "Pilgrim Virgins" project, which was due to be launched in September 1995. Back in the Paris region, they needed to find a house quickly, but before they could do that, they decided to join us to experience the "spiritual adventure raid" first hand. So they slept near Saint Juliana, having told the whole group of their intention, and at the end of the pilgrimage, eight days later, someone offered to rent them a little country house as a temporary solution at a very reasonable rate, which they did. As Providence would have it, this house was the closest to the Saint-Juliana fountain! They went on to spend three years with Saint Juliana, who, it seems, had heard our prayer!

The saint is represented in the church of Le Val with a reliquary bust, still in place, containing one of her precious relics.A large painting dated 1879 depicts the torture of the saint, and a processional banner can be seen near the sacristy.In the 1960s, a beautiful stained glass window was installed depicting the martyrdom of the saint, from the cauldron to her beheading.

Au-delà des raisons d'y croire :

The courage and faith of so many martyrs, who preferred to lay down their lives with meekness, prayer and forgiveness rather than deny Christ, is an astonishing and admirable fact.

Aller plus loin :

The Life of Saint Juliana in The Golden Legend by Jacobus de Voragine, OP 

En savoir plus :

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• The Legend of St. Juliana, translated from the Latin of the Acta Sanctorum and the Anglo-Saxon of Cynewulf, by Charles William Kennedy (1906) Wentworth Press, 2016
• Article "St Juliana" in Catholic Encyclopedia