Murals (2008) by PHANTAST - Graffiti - Cultural Music & Art Association inc. - 98 Milne St. Benleigh
12 January, St.Tatiana, a deaconess, on His Footpath.
She was the daughter of a Roman civil servant who was secretly Christian, and raised his daughter in the faith.
Ordained as a deaconess in one of churches in Rome, she was tending the sick, helping the needy and preparing the girls and woman for the sacrament of Holy Baptism.
Tatiana was arrested by the jurist Ulpian, during the reign of Emperor Alexander Severus. They attempted to force her to make a sacrifice to Apollo.
They tore her eyes out, and tortured her for two days, before being brought to a circus and thrown into the pit with a hungry lion. But the lion did not touch her and lay at her feet.
Tatiana was beheaded on January 12, AD 225.
Tatiana was a deaconess, following the plea for unity of Church by St. Ap. Paul in his letter to Ephesians 4,1-16 :
- Christians have been fashioned through the Spirit,
- into a single harmonious religious community (one body),
- belonging to a single Lord and
- by one way of salvation through faith,
- brought out especially by the significance of baptism.
But Christian unity is more than adherence to a common belief.
It is manifested in the exault of Christ's gifts to individuals to serve,
so as to make the community more Christlike.