by Kittredge Cherry | Mar 7, 2020 (qspirit.net)
Saints Perpetua and Felicity were brave North African woman friends who were executed for their Christian faith in the third century. Some consider them lesbian saints or patrons of same-sex couples. Perpetua is sometimes seen as a transgender saint because she had a dream about being transformed into a man. Their feast day is March 7.
Perpetua and Felicity were arrested for being Christian, imprisoned together, and held onto each other in the last moments before they died together on March 7, 203. Their feast day always falls right before International Women’s Day on March 8.
Perpetua and Felicity are still revered both inside and outside the church. For example, they are named together in the Roman Catholic Canon of the Mass. They are often included in lists of LGBTQ saints because they demonstrate the power of love between two women.
Perpetua kept a vivid journal
The details of their imprisonment are known because Perpetua kept a journal, the first known written document by a woman in Christian history. In fact, her “The Passion of Saints Perpetua and Felicity” was so revered in fourth-century North Africa that Augustine of Hippo warned people not to treat it like the Bible.
Perpetua was a 22-year-old noblewoman and a nursing mother. Felicity, her slave, gave birth to a daughter while they were in prison. Although she was married, Perpetua’s husband is conspicuously absent from her diary.
Perpetua’s journal does include descriptions of her dreams. In her fourth and final dream, she is transformed into a man and fights in the Coliseum. During the dream she sees herself enter the gladiatorial arena. Her assistants remove her clothes for battle. Perpetua looks at her naked body and exclaims, “My clothes were stripped off, and suddenly I was a man” (The Martyrdom of Perpetua 3.2). In male form, Perpetua goes on to fight and defeat an ugly Egyptian man.
Mosaics of Perpetua and Felicity at Archiepiscopal Chapel in Ravenna, Italy. Sixth century. Photo by Nick Thompson.
People loved the gender-bending story of the two women comforting each other in jail and giving each other the kiss of peace as they met their end in the amphitheater at Carthage (in contemporary Tunisia). They were exposed to a wild cow before being beheaded. The women are often depicted with a cow, and Perpetua is the patron saint of cattle.
Yale history professor John Boswell names Perpetua and Felicity as one of the three primary pairs of same-sex lovers in the early church. (The others are male pairs Polyeuct and Nearchus and Sergius and Bacchus.) The love story of Felicity and Perpetua is told with historical detail in two books, “Same Sex Unions in Pre-Modern Europe” by Boswell and “Passionate Holiness: Marginalized Christian Devotions for Distinctive People” by Dennis O’Neill. O’Neill is founder of the Living Circle, the interfaith LGBTQ spirituality center that commissioned a well-known icon of Perpetua and Felicity by Robert Lentz.
Saints Perpetua and Felicity in art
The icon of the loving same-sex pair appears at the top of this article. It was painted by Brother Robert Lentz, a Franciscan friar and world-class iconographer known for his progressive icons. It is rare to see an icon about the love between women, especially two dark-skinned African women. The rich reds and heart-shaped double-halo make it look like a holy Valentine.
This same icon also appears on the cover of the classic LGBTQ Christian book, “The Queer Bible Commentary,” edited by Deryn Guest, Robert Shore-Goss and Mona West. Prints of “Saints Perpetua and Felicity” by Robert Lentz are available through Amazon and Trinity Stores.
“Perpetua and Felicity” is one of 40 icons featured in “Christ in the Margins,” an illustrated book by Robert Lentz and Edwina Gateley.
“Perpetua and Felicitas” by Katy Miles-Wallace. Available as prints and more at the Queerly Christian Etsy and Zazzle shops.
Perpetua and Felicitas share a rainbow halo in an icon created in 2017 by queer Lutheran artist and seminarian Katy Miles-Wallace as part of her “Queer Saints” series. It appears at the top of this post. The series presents traditional saints with queer qualities and heroes of the LGBTQ community.
The icons are rooted in queer theology and in Miles-Wallace’s eclectic faith journey that began at a Baptist church in Texas and led to study at Pacific Lutheran Theological Seminary in Berkeley, California. She drew many of them on the altar of a seminary chapel. For more info, see the Q Spirit article “New icons of Queer Saints created by artist Katy Miles-Wallace.” The icons are available as prints, jewelry and more at the Queerly Christian Etsy and Zazzle shops.
“Perpetua and Felicity” by Angela Yarber. Prints are available at her shop on Fine Art America.
Artist Angela Yarber paints a gloriously glowing icon of the women saints. “I first learned of Perpetua and Felicity on Kittredge Cherry’s blog, Jesus in Love. Now they join my other Holy Women Icons with a folk feminist twist,” Yarber writes at the Feminism and Religion blog.
Yarber is founder and creative director of the Holy Women Icons Project, which was renamed the Tehom Center in 2020. She is a painter, author, scholar, dancer, minister and LGBTQ-rights activist based in Hawaii and North Carolina. She earned a Ph.D. in art and religion from the Graduate Theological Union at the University of California in Berkeley. Nearly 50 color images of her folk feminist icons included in her book “Holy Women Icons.”
She depicts the pair of women saints with golden warmth and an African vibe. Her icon shows Perpetua and Felicity hugging as their hearts unite into a single large heart. It is inscribed with the words:
Comfort, love, and a holy kiss
Bound their hearts in
The moment of death,
Embracing so that all
May embrace
“Felicity and Perpetua: Patrons of Same-Sex Couples” by Maria Cristina
A banner saying “patrons of same sex couples” hangs above Felicity and Perpetua in the colorful icon painted by Maria Cristina, an artist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico. She paints the two women holding hands in an elegant gesture. The skull of a long-horn cow, similar to paintings of famous New Mexico artist Georgia O’Keefe, adds a welcome bit of Southwestern flavor to the image while echoing the standard iconography of portraying the pair with a cow.
“New icon: Saints Perpetua and Felicitas” by Kalle Hamm
Finnish artist Kalle Hamm created an image of Perpetua and Felicitas that is suitable for society now, when “icon” is more likely to mean a computer symbol than a religious figure. He writes their story using emoji with the goal of affirming LGBTQ people in a contemporary, accessible way. Hamm’s 2018 “New Icons” series includes these and many other same-sex pairs of saints who suffered for their beliefs.
Perpetua and Felicitas share a single halo as “patrons of women’s rights” on elegant pendants from artist Shoushan of Artisan Courtyard. Perpetua and Felicity ear rings, candles,shirts and incense are also available.
Saints Perpetua and Felicity appear together as a couple on a religious medal available from PicturesOnGold at Amazon.
Artist Jim Ru was inspired to paint Felicity and Perpetua as a kissing couple. His version was displayed in his show “Transcendent Faith: Gay, Lesbian and Transgendered Saints” in Bisbee Arizona in the 1990s.
Irish artist St. George Hare, painted an erotic, romanticized vision of Perpetua and Felicity around 1890. His painting “The Victory of Faith” shows the women as an inter-racial couple sleeping together nude on a prison floor.
Their lives are the subject of several recent historical novels, including “Perpetua: A Bride, A Martyr, A Passion” by Amy Peterson and “The Bronze Ladder” by Malcolm Lyon.
Perpetua and Felicity prayers
Q Spirit’s Litany of Queer Saints includes these lines:
“Saint Perpetua and Saint Felicity, who shared a holy kiss before dying, patron saints of same-sex couples, pray for us.”
Links related to Perpetua and Felicity
“Eternal Bliss” – SS Felicity and Perpetua, March 7th (Queer Saints and Martyrs – and Others)
Suspect 3rd Century Women Put to Death in Arena: Ancient Hate Crime? (Unfinished Lives: Remembering LGBT hate crime victims)
Facebook discussion of this article at Believe Out Loud
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Translations:
To read this article in Spanish, to to:
Perpetua y Felicitas: santas patronas de parejas del mismo sexo (Santos Queer)
To read this article in Russian, go to:
Святые Перпетуя и Фелицитата: покровительницы однополых пар (nuntiare.org)
To read this article in Italian, go to:
Perpetua e Felicita, le sante patrone delle coppie omosessuali (gionata.org)
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Top image credit:
“Saints Perpetua and Felicity” by Brother Robert Lentz, OFM. Prints are available through Amazon and Trinity Stores.
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This post is part of the LGBTQ Saints series by Kittredge Cherry. Traditional and alternative saints, people in the Bible, LGBTQ martyrs, authors, theologians, religious leaders, artists, deities and other figures of special interest to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and queer (LGBTQ) people and our allies are covered.
This article was originally published on Q Spirit in February 2017 and was updated for accuracy and expanded with new material on March 2, 2021.
Copyright © Kittredge Cherry. All rights reserved.
Qspirit.net presents the Jesus in Love Blog on LGBTQ spirituality.
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Follow Kittredge Cherry Founder at Q Spirit Kittredge Cherry is a lesbian Christian author who writes regularly about LGBTQ spirituality.She holds degrees in religion, journalism and art history.She was ordained by Metropolitan Community Churches and served as its national ecumenical officer, advocating for LGBTQ rights at the National Council of Churches and World Council of Churches.