St Euphemia, Rovinj

There is very little historical information of St Euphemia. It is believed that she was daughter of a respectable citizen from Kalcedon, near Constantinople, and as a Christian she was tortured and thrown to the lions in 304 during Diocletian’s reign. 

A church in Constantinople was erected in her honour where her sarcophagus had laid till 800 A.D. It is said that one stormy night the sarcophagus disappeared and it reappeared on the shores of Rovinj where it was found by a shepherd who, with his two cows, managed to drag it up the hill where it still lays in the church of St Euphemia, patron of the town of Rovinj.