Saint Domnina and her daughters Berenice (Bernice, Veronica, Verine, Vernike) and Prosdoce are venerated as Christian martyrs by the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Churches. The Diocletianic or Great Persecution was the last and most severe persecution of Christians in the Roman Empire. In 303, the emperors Diocletian, Maximian, Galerius, and Constantius issued a series of edicts rescinding Christians' legal rights and demanding that they comply with traditional religious practices. In the winter of 302, Galerius urged Diocletian to begin a general persecution of the Christians. Diocletian was wary, and asked the oracle of Apollo at Didyma for guidance. The oracle's reply was read as an endorsement of Galerius's position, and a general persecution was called on February 23, 303. The persecution failed to check the rise of the Church. By 324, Constantine was sole ruler of the empire, and Christianity had become his favored religion. Although the persecution resulted in death, torture, imprisonment, or dislocation for many Christians, the majority of the empire's Christians avoided punishment. The persecution did, however, cause many churches to split between those who had complied with imperial authority (the traditores), and those who had remained "pure". Thanks to Christ’s Resurrection, now even women disdain death. Before Christ, death was dreadful even for holy men like Abraham, Jacob, and Elijah. Death was fearful, in order that the grace of the era of Christ might become clearer. In the New Testament, Paul refers to death as the preferable condition, because it leads to a better life. A great war is started against the Church, resembling a civil war. Christians are attacked by the authorities and people of their own country, and by their own relatives. During that time, these women abandon their house and relatives, and leave their country – a distressful journey for a mother and her daughters, who had had no previous experience of such hardships. Although devoid of guards and protectors, the honour of these women is protected by their faith in Christ. They fly to Edessa, a rural but pious town, which receives and protects them for some time. While they live there, new decrees arrive, commanding that relatives betray their own relatives, children and parents, thus fulfilling a prophecy of Christ (Mark 13:12). The devil incites people to filicide. Thus the husband and father of the martyrs arrives at Edessa with soldiers, looking for his wife and daughters. The three women