Saint Corona - Patron saint of epidemics?
Saints Victor and Corona (also known as Victor and Stephanie) are two Christian martyrs. Their legend states that Victor was a Roman soldier of Italian ancestry. Victor was tortured and then beheaded in Damascus in 160 AD. While he was suffering from the tortures, the sixteen-year-old wife of another soldier, named Corona or Stephanie comforted and encouraged him. For this, she was arrested and interrogated. Corona is especially venerated in Austria and eastern Bavaria. She is invoked in connection with superstitions involving money, such as gambling and treasure hunting. Otto III, around AD 1000, brought Corona's relics to Aachen in western Germany. Though there is little evidence of her being invoked against epidemics, Reuters reported in 2020 that she was "patron saint of epidemics," and that her relics will be available for public veneration "once the coronavirus pandemic has passed."