Margaret the Virgin

Margaret, known as Margaret of Antioch in the West, and as Saint Marina the Great Martyr in the East, is celebrated as a saint on 20 July in Western Christianity, on 30th of July (Julian calendar) by the Eastern Orthodox Church, and on Epip 23 and Hathor 23 in the Coptic Orthodox Church. The teenage Margaret is said to have been tortured and beheaded when she refused to renounce Christianity and give her virginity to a Roman official in the 4th century. She was reputed to have promised very powerful indulgences to those who wrote or read her life or invoked her intercessions; these no doubt helped the spread of her following. Margaret is one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers in Roman Catholic tradition.

Patron saint of pregnant women; nurses; peasants; exiles; the falsely accused; the dying; kidney disease; Lowestoft; Queens' College; Cambridge; Sannat and Cospicua