Right-believing Princess Juliana of Vyazma

Juliana of Vyazma was a princess of medieval Rus' who is venerated as a martyr for her steadfast defense of marital fidelity and chastity. According to the synaxarion, she was a daughter of the noble Maximus Danilov and the wife of Prince Simeon of Vyazma. When the Lithuanian prince Vitovt seized their native lands, Simeon and a fellow exile, Prince Yuri of Smolensk, were compelled to flee, and Prince Basil of Moscow granted them the Tver town of Torzhok.

By tradition, Prince Yuri became captivated by Juliana's beauty and repeatedly sought to persuade her to commit adultery, but she remained faithful to her husband. During a feast he murdered Simeon in the hope of taking her by force. When Juliana resisted his assault and wounded him with a knife, the enraged Yuri ordered that her hands and feet be cut off and her body cast into the Tvertsa River. Her death is dated to the winter of 1406.

The following spring her remains were recovered from the water, and the synaxarion relates that a peasant heard a voice from above commanding that the body be buried in the cathedral at Torzhok, on the right side by the south doors, where the burial took place in 1407. A tomb was later raised at the Savior-Transfiguration cathedral, a site associated with healings. Her relics were uncovered in 1819 and her glorification took place on June 2 of that year; in 1906 a church dedicated to her was built at the cathedral of the Transfiguration. She is commemorated on December 21, with the uncovering of her relics kept on June 2.