Life and Martyrdom
The surviving accounts describe Cyrilla as an elderly widow of Cyrene. One tradition relates that she had been widowed for many years, her husband having died early in their marriage.
When she was arrested during the persecution of Diocletian and refused to offer sacrifice to the idols, her torturers attempted to compel an act of worship by force: they placed lit coals and incense in her bare hands so that, when she dropped the burning mass onto the altar, it would count as an offering. Rather than let the coals fall, she is said to have gripped them firmly and refused to cooperate.
When this stratagem failed, she was tortured to death. The accounts describe her flesh being torn with metal hooks, and she died of these torments.
Companions
A number of sources connect Cyrilla with the Hieromartyr Theodore, Bishop of Cyrene, naming her among the holy women Cyprilla, Aroa, and Lucia who attended the bishop during his imprisonment under the governor Dignianus. By this tradition she visited Theodore in prison and was healed of a severe ailment through his prayers, and after his death she too was seized and martyred.
These traditions relate that, following Cyrilla's burial, the women Lucia and Aroa were beheaded. The connection of Cyrilla with this group is noted in the sources but is not uniformly attested, and her own commemoration is kept on July 5.
Miracles & Traditions
Historically Documented: The sources offer no independently documented miracles.
Traditional Accounts: By one tradition, when Cyrilla was raised upon wood and her flesh torn, blood flowed from her wounds together with milk from her breasts. The same tradition relates that she had earlier been cured of a severe headache through the prayers of Bishop Theodore of Cyrene.
