Saint Rais
Egyptian saint
Rais, also known as Iris, Iraida, Irais, Herais or Rhais, is a martyr venerated by the Roman Catholic and the Eastern Orthodox churches.
According to one account, she was the daughter of a Christian priest named Peter living in Alexandria, Roman Province of Egypt.
Biography
At the age of twelve, she was sent to live in a women's monastery at Tamman. One day in 303 AD, during a time of widespread persecution of Christians during the reign of the Roman Emperor Diocletian, she went to a well to draw water with other nuns. On the way, they saw a ship with a group of nuns, monks, and other Christians in chains, who were being abused by Loukianos and his men. Rais berated the abusers and insisted that they kill her as well if they were killing Christians. They took her into custody. When the ship had reached Antinoöpolis, Rais was one of the first to die. When Loukianos yelled out, "I spit upon the Christian God," Rais objected, stepped up and spat into the tyrant's face. Loukianos then ordered the girl to be tortured and beheaded.
“Saint Rais” enters the record as egyptian saint. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Saint, Rais and Egyptian can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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Named sources, stable identifiers and responsible institutions provide the strongest route from overview to verifiable evidence. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 23, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q7402120. 1 of 1 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank.
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This entry incorporates text from “Saint Rais” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.