Alla

Saint Alla was a Christian of the Gothic people who suffered martyrdom in the fourth century in the region known as Gothia, north of the lower Danube. By that period Christianity had taken root among some of the Goths, owing in part to the missionary activity of the bishop Ulfilas and to contacts with the Roman Empire. Tensions nevertheless persisted between pagan Gothic leaders, Arian Christians, and those who held the Nicene faith. In the 370s a persecution was directed against Nicene Christians by the Gothic ruler Athanaric and his subordinates.

According to the early passio of the Gothic martyrs, a congregation of twenty-six Christians, among them the priests Wereka and Batwin, the monk Arpilas, a number of laymen, and several women, had assembled in a church. The Gothic official Winguric (also called Jungeric) had the building surrounded and set on fire. All those inside died in the flames. The liturgical lists of the Eastern Church preserve the names of the women who perished, and Alla appears among them together with Anna, Larissa, Moiko, Mamika, Virko and Animais.

Virtually nothing else is recorded about Alla's life. Surviving sources do not mention her parentage, place of birth within Gothic territory, marital status, or whether she had children. She is known solely as one of the faithful who remained in the church and accepted death by fire rather than abandon the Christian assembly. The event is generally placed by historians in the mid-370s, shortly before the mass crossing of the Danube by the Goths in 376.

After the massacre a Gothic noblewoman named Gaatha, described in the sources as a queen or the widow of a king, recovered the charred relics of the martyrs with the help of her daughter Dulcilla. The relics were taken by ship to Cyzicus in Asia Minor and there given honorable burial. Gaatha later returned to Gothia, where she herself is said to have been stoned to death. The Church has commemorated Alla and her companions on 26 March from an early date. Their cult is attested in Greek, Slavic and some Latin martyrologies.

Because Alla belongs to a group of early martyrs whose individual biographies were never written down, later tradition has not assigned her particular patronages, nor is a precise year of birth or an exact place of burial for her own remains independently attested. She remains an obscure yet authentic witness to the presence of Nicene Christianity among the fourth-century Goths.