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The Armenian Apostolic Church honors on Tuesday, September 24, the memory of Sts. Peprone, Mariane and Shushan, daughter of Vartan the Great, Qahana.am reports.

St. Peprone was from the town Nisibis and since childhood she had entered the church vowing to renounce from secular life and devote herself to the Church. As St. Hripsime, she was also subjected to persecutions by the Roman Emperor Diokletianos. When the Emperor’s servants reached the town Nisibis in 305 A. D., the nuns living in the monastery were forced to leave the town, while Peprone, who was ill, stayed in the monastery with her teacher Vren and Sister Toumayis. Heathen judge Seghinos tried to persuade the pretty nun to renounce from Christianity and promised to marry her with his noble nephew Lusimakos. In response Peprone said that she had already become the bride of Christ vowing to remain a virgin and not to marry. Seghinos, becoming annoyed, ordered to cut off first her hands and feet and than her head. Lusimakos, witnessing her death, became faithful and ordered to bury her with proper honors, and Seghinos, witnessing the nun’s indescribable torments, went mad and committed suicide.

St. Mariane was from Antioch in Pisidia. She was the only daughter of the town’s heathen priest and, losing her mother in childhood, she was brought up a Christian nurse. When she had already grown up, her father wished to make her a heathen priest. The young woman refused to renounce Christ and to serve the idols. Her father turned her off his house and she wnet to her nurse. But soon she was imprisoned and beheaded.

St. Shushan was Captain Vardan Mamikonian’s elder daughter. Her real name is Vardenie, but in the Armenian history and hagiography she is known by the name Shoushan. She was married to Vazgen, son of the Georgian consul Asousha. Although they had three sons and one daughter, her husband converted to Persian faith and married the mother-in-low of the Persian knight Peroz. Shushan began to live in a small house near the church and prays all the time, always rejecting her husband’s suggestions to give up her faith and ignoring his threats. Shushan was persecuted for 7 years, but remained unshaken in her faith. She was martyred in 470 A. D. According to historian Ukhtanes she was buried in Yourtav.