Who was St. Ursula? Why is Saint Ursula’s Feast Day Celebrated?

Saint Ursula’s Day is celebrated on 21 October in the British Virgin Islands, because St. Ursula is the patron saint of the Virgin Islands archipelago. The day celebrates the discovery and naming of the Virgin Islands by Christopher Columbus. He called them “Saint Ursula and Her 11,000 Virgins.”

Saint Ursula’s Day is celebrated on 21 October in the British Virgin Islands, because St. Ursula is the patron saint of the Virgin Islands archipelago. The day celebrates the discovery and naming of the Virgin Islands by Christopher Columbus. He called them “Saint Ursula and Her 11,000 Virgins.”

The British Virgin Islands (BVI) is a British overseas region situated in the Caribbean. It is part of the Virgin Islands archipelago. The archipelago was found by Christopher Columbus in 1493. The explorer named the islands Santa Ursula y las Once Mil Vírgenes (Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins) out of appreciation for Saint Ursula. The name was usually abbreviated to Las Vírgenes (The Virgins), after the legend of Saint Ursula.

It is hazy if Columbus named the islands since he spotted them on October 21st which is Saint Ursula’s Feast Day or if it was because he saw one bigger island (which he named Virgin Gorda “Fat Virgin”) joined by a myriad of smaller islands and it helped him to remember the legend.

Who was Saint Ursula

Saint Ursula is a Christian saint. She was a British princess who was supposed to marry Brettonic leader Conan Meriadoc. Ursula set sail to join her future spouse in Cologne, alongside 11,000 virginal handmaidens. On her approach to Cologne, she experienced Huns, who executed all the virgins in a massacre and afterward shot Ursula dead.

Saint Ursula was an Incredible princess, the girl of a Christian British ruler, and Saint Daria. She traveled Europe in the association of either 11 or 11,000 individual women; the 11,000 number undoubtedly came about as a result of a misreading of the expression “11M” which exhibited 11 Martyrs.

Be that as it may, which a copyist took for a Roman numeral. Ursula and her association were tortured to death to get them to repudiate their certainty, and old compositions of them show a critical number of the women being executed in various troublesome manners. The namesake for the Ursuline Order set up for the training of youthful Catholic youngsters and women.

Saint Ursula and her 11,000 Virgins

Saint Ursula is a Romano-British Christian saint whose traditional date of death is October 21st 383AD.

Her acclaim depends on a medieval story (considered by numerous individuals to be to a greater extent a legend because of the absence of confirming data) which discloses to us that she was a princess from Dumnonia (modern-day Cornwall in England). In line with her dad King Dionotus, Ursula set sail alongside 11,000 virginal handmaidens to join her future spouse, Governor Conan Meriadoc of Armorica (modern-day Brittany).

In the wake of leaving the British coast in her fleet, a marvelous tempest acquired them over the English Channel a solitary day to Gaul. Ursula decided that the storm was an indication that before her marriage she ought to embrace a journey around Europe for a piece and not in any manner a reason to slow down her approaching marriage. Her first stop was Rome where she convinced the Pope and the bishop of Ravenna, to join her stupendous tour.

After going through a few towns she arrived at Cologne, which was under attack by Huns at that point. The Huns decapitated all the virgins and the Huns’ leader lethally shot Ursula with an arrow. The supposed relics of Ursula and her handmaidens are housed in the Basilica of St. Ursula in Cologne.

In the British Virgin Islands, Saint Ursula’s Day is an off-work day. There are religious events everywhere on the islands, and there is likewise a well-known boat race.

Saint Ursula’s feast day falls on October 21. It was formally assigned as a public holiday in the British Virgin Islands in 1957. Regardless of the way that Saint Ursula is the patron saint of the whole archipelago, it isn’t celebrated in the American Virgin Islands. In the event of the holiday, a traditional yacht race is commonly organized.

Taking into account that there is no work on this day and that the Virgin Islands are encircled by clear water oceans, it is difficult to believe that the majority of islanders would praise this holiday away from the beach. The Royal British Virgin Islands Yacht Club annually arranges a St Ursula’s day race. There are various religious festivals organized everywhere on the 60 islands, who are dominatingly Protestant Christian. Some political movements want to change the day from the recognition of the naming of the archipelago by a holiday to perceive fishermen, mariners, and boat manufacturers, in appreciation of the Islands’ marine heritage.