She was born from Christian parents who raised her in a Christian upbringing. She asked her father to build her a house where she and her friends could devote their lives to God, and he consented building a large palace for her. Her friends kept growing in number until they reached forty.
Emperor Diocletian enticed her father Marcos, who was a governor in his province, to worship the idols in recompense of worldly possessions. At first, Marcos resisted, then he conceded and worshiped the Emperor’s idols. When his daughter heard of these news, she prayed in one accord with her friends for the conversion of her father.
She went to her father and admonished and reminded him of the Savior’s words: “Do not fear those who kill the body for the spirit they cannot touch, but fear he who could kill he spirit and the body in hell” (Mt. ) and “He who denies me before people, I will deny before My Father’s angels” (Mt.) St. Demiana rushed to meet her father, did not greet him, but said, “What is it that I heard about you? I would have preferred to hear about your death rather than to hear that you have renounced your faith and forsaken the God Who created you from non-existence into being, to worship gods made by hands. Take note that if you do not return to your first faith and renounce the worship of stones, you are not my father and I am not your daughter,” and she left him.
Her father was greatly moved by the words of his daughter, and he wept bitterly. In haste, he went to Diocletian and confessed the Lord Christ. When the Emperor could not convince him with threats and promises, he ordered him beheaded. After learning that St. Demiana was the cause of her father’s conversion, the Emperor ordered her arrest along with her friends. After several useless attempts to avert her faith, he finally ordered her execution with the forty virgins. Thus, they all received the crown of martyrdom in one day.
St. Demiana is the central figure of this icon surrounded on either side with her companions, the forty virgin martyrs. She is carrying a cross in her right hand signifying from whence her strength came and in her left a palm branch as a symbol of her entrance into the Kingdom of Heaven. They all stand on grass (new life) amidst flowers of white and red (purity and martyr’s blood, respectively). Above St. Demiana’s head are two angels crowning her with the crown of martyrdom.