St. Dorothy of Caesarea

Dorothy is honoured as a virgin martyr of Caesarea in Cappadocia. Butler recounts the tradition preserved by St. Aldhelm: she refused both an unwanted marriage and the worship of idols, and suffered for her Christian faith. Two women sent to persuade her to abandon it were themselves brought back to Christianity.

The best-known part of her story concerns Theophilus. The traditional acts relate that Dorothy, condemned to death, sent him flowers and fruit miraculously received from her heavenly Spouse. The gift brought him to faith. This familiar scene belongs to the devotional narrative, rather than to a biography whose every detail can be independently recovered.

Butler notes her place in the older martyrologies and the veneration of her relics at Rome. He also distinguishes her from an Alexandrian woman sometimes called Dorothy. The February 6 commemoration concerns the Cappadocian martyr; the two stories are not combined here.