The Holy Virgin Pelagia lived in the 3rd century in the city of Tarsus in the Cilician region of Asia Minor. She was the daughter of noble pagans, and when she heard a sermon about Jesus Christ, the Son of God, from Christians she knew, she believed in Him and wished to keep chastity, devoting her whole life to the Lord. The heir of the Emperor Diocletian (a young man adopted by him), seeing the maiden Pelagia, was captivated by her beauty and wished to take her as his wife. But the holy virgin told the young man that she was betrothed to the Immortal Bridegroom, the Son of God, and refused earthly matrimony. 
Such a response from Pelagia brought the royal youth into great anger, but he decided to leave her alone for a while, hoping that she would change her way of thinking. Meanwhile, Pelagia begged her mother to let her go to her nurse, who raised her in childhood, secretly hoping to find Bishop Klinon of Tarsia, who had retired to the mountains during the persecution of Christians, and receive holy Baptism from him. 
In a dream vision of Pelagia, the image of Bishop Klinon appeared, deeply imprinted in her memory. Saint Pelagia went to the nurse in a chariot, in rich clothes and accompanied by a whole retinue of servants, as her mother wished. Bishop Klinon came out to meet Saint Pelagia by special order of God. Pelagia immediately recognized the bishop, whose image appeared to her in a dream. She fell at his feet, asking for baptism. At the bishop's prayer, a water source flowed out of the ground. Bishop Klinon baptized Saint Pelagia, during the sacrament Angels appeared and covered the chosen one of God with a bright veil. After communing with the pious virgin of the Holy Mysteries, Bishop Klinon offered prayerful thanks to the Lord with her and let her go on her way. 
Returning to the servants who were waiting for her, Saint Pelagia preached to them about Christ, and many of them converted and believed. She tried to convert her mother to faith in Christ, but the hardened mother sent to tell the king's son that Pelagia was a Christian and did not want to be his wife. The young man realized that Pelagia was lost to him, and, not wanting to betray her to torment, he pierced himself with a sword. Then Pelagia's mother was afraid of the emperor's anger, tied up her daughter and took her to Diocletian for trial as a Christian and the alleged culprit of the death of the heir to the throne. 
The emperor was captivated by the extraordinary beauty of the girl and tried to turn her away from faith in Christ, promising her all sorts of earthly benefits and promising to make her his first wife. But the holy virgin scornfully rejected the king's proposals and said: "You are mad, king, to speak to me like that. Know that I will not fulfill your desire, for I abhor your vile marriage, since I have a Bridegroom – Christ, the King of Heaven. I do not desire your royal, vain and untimely crown, for my Lord has three incorruptible crowns in His heavenly Kingdom. The first is for faith, because I believed with all my heart in the True God; the second is for purity, because I gave Him my virginity; the third is for martyrdom, because I want to accept all torment for Him and lay down my soul for the sake of my love for Him." 
Then Diocletian sentenced Pelagia to be burned in a red-hot cast copper vessel. Not allowing the executioners to touch her body, the holy martyr herself, making the sign of the cross, entered a red-hot furnace with prayer, in which her body melted like myrrh, filling the whole city with fragrance; the bones of Saint Pelagia remained intact in the fire and were thrown out of the city by the pagans. Then four lions came from the desert and sat down near the bones, not allowing any birds or animals to approach them. The lions guarded the remains of the saint until Bishop Klinon came to the place. He gathered them up and buried them with honor. The torment and death of Saint Pelagia occurred in 290. In the reign of Emperor Constantine (306-337), when the persecution of Christians ceased, a church was built on the burial site of St. Pelagia.