1-sided St. Dorothy Receiving Apples and Roses Garden Flag

Also available as a two-sided variant for an additional cost. NOTE WELL: This flag has printing only on the front. The back is totally blank. Adding ANYTHING to the backside—a word, an icon, a picture, even a white or solid background color—will trigger a surcharge/an upcharge! + Does your garden have fruit trees? St. Dorothy is the garden saint for you! According to legend, St. Dorothy of Caesarea, Cappadocia (modern Turkey), took a vow of perpetual virginity solemnized by a mystical marriage with Christ. Like so many other virgins who became martyrs in the Early Church, she was hauled before the local Roman authorities for being Christian and refusing to sacrifice to pagan idols supposedly by a jilted suitor. Mocking her beliefs, one Theophilus, a lawyer at her trial, challenged her Heavenly Bridegroom to provide some fruits from His garden though it was winter. Before her execution, St. Dorothy sent Theophilus her headdress brimming with out-of-season apples and roses (or their scent) via an angel in the guise of a six-year-old boy. Fruits and flowers, especially apples and roses, naturally became her attributes. + Here, St. Dorothy, crowned with red roses, is dressed in a golden yellow robe and aqua blue mantle. She holds a spray of red roses along with her palm of martyrdom. Undisguised, a young angel with green wings and clad in a peach robe presents the saint with and a basket of roses and, presumably, apples. A starry sky and red wall hanging provide a backdrop. + St. Dorothy is patron of gardeners, florists, and orchards. The blessing of fruit trees on February 6, her feast, is still customary in some regions. + Epilogue: Theophilus was converted and was martyred too. + Image Credit (SAU 043): Detail of an antique image in chromolithography of St. Dorothy of Caesarea from a loose print probably intended for a bookplate, originally published by the Socièté de St. Augustin, Bruges, Belgium, from the designer’s private collection of religious ephemera. The image also exists as a holy card.