St. Barbara was the most beautiful and intelligent daughter of a Pagan man named Dioscorus. Dioscorus wanted to preserve the beauty of his only daughter by locking her away in a tower. She was surrounded with all sorts of idols but there, she was able to discover faith in the one true God. When Dioscorus found out about her newly Christian faith, he chased her from the tower and beat her. But God sent angels to heal her beauty once again. After he killed her, lightning struck the house, setting it on fire, killing him.
St. Barbara's feast day falls on the same day as St. John of Damascus. An iconographer and proponent of the Orthodox faith in a time when it was suppressed by the iconoclasts. St. John of Damascus was accused falsely of a crime which led to the caliph cutting off his hand. His hand was miraculously healed and put back together to allow him to continue his iconography. To this day, his work is influential in the thought of the Church. St. Thomas Aquinas appeals to St. John of Damascus regularly in his Summa.
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