Questions on St. Agrippina of Mineo (from that Boston festival)?

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A rather long time ago, I found myself in Boston watching the Agrippina festival. Aside from the fun that such things can bring about (the Italians sure know how to throw a party), i found myself scratching my head about the Saint who was venerated.

I never heard of her. And when i asked around, outside of Festival context, no one else seemed to know who she was.

Except strangely, the Eastern Orthodox - although they conceive of her differently.

→ BLOGUL PROIECTULUI 'THEODIALOGIA': Saint Agrippina

Whereas i guess, “modern” Agrippina seems a lit bit more…flashy ?
→ Il Regno: Celebrating a Hundred Years of Devotion to Sant'Agrippina di Mineo in Boston, Mass. (Part 1)

So…

1.) Same person? or are there different Agrippinas?

2.) If the same - when did we get the costume change on the Catholic end?

3.) Is she really only venerated in Boston and Mineo? I haven’t really seen here anywhere else.

4.) How in the heck did she become patroness invoked against evil spirits?

5.) More of a fun question - for those familiar with the Boston festival - what should a tourist passing through the town on that day eat? 😀
 
(1) They’re the same person.

(2) Saints, especially those of classical antiquity, tend to be depicted in very anachronistic ways. Often this is because of an artistic intent to emphasise some part of a saint’s life: St Agrippina rejected the crown of a Roman noblewoman for the crown of a Christian martyr, and so she is often depicted in the raiment of a royal Christian queen (with crown and various accoutrements).

(3) I wouldn’t be surprised if she is. Many (if not most) saints tend to have localised cults of veneration.

I’m afraid I can’t questions (4) and (5), but I would be very interested to see others answers for (5)!
 
Thanks for your thoughts 🙂 Hopefully we can a kind Bostonian on these boards who might be able to answer 4 and 5.
 
1 and 2) = already answered above.
  1. already answered above, but I would add on that there are dozens of such “local” saints from Europe. Every little town or area has its own local saints, and many of them are relatively unknown outside the local area. St. Agrippina is actually better known than most of them because of that big Boston festival. She is also venerated to some extent in Greece because her cult spread there from Sicily.
  2. The local saints for an area would be invoked against everything for that area. Evil spirits, plagues, you name it. Sicily, like a lot of regions of Italy, has a tradition of being concerned with warding off evil spirits/ the “evil eye”, so they would pray to their local patron saint for protection against this, just like they pray to her for protection against storms, diseases, etc.
Can’t help you with (5) as I have not yet been to this festival, though I would love to go sometime. If it’s anything like the big Italian festivals in other towns (my hometown has the Feast of the Assumption which is huge and the Feast of St. Rocco which is also pretty big) then pretty much everything Italian tastes great.
 
Thanks for the clarifications Tis_Bearself.

I tend to forget those points you made regarding 3 and 4. I come from a medical family, so when I pray i treat Saints the way i’d go see a specialist. You know - Anthony for Lost Things, Rita for Impossible Causes, Padre Pio Just Cause 😉.

I mean, when Covid kicked up, I kinda went with the “more the merry” approach and starting praying to the 14 Holy Helpers, 😆, although i’ve been told people have settled on St. Rocco, Rosalie (another local saint), Michael, and a St. Corona of all things.

So praying to one saint for everything seems kind of strange to me, but i guess it makes sense given the time period you are speaking about.

As for what the festival looks like:

→

so yeah i think that fits the category which you speak of. It just appears to be…a whole lot bigger… than the ones i’ve seen in NYC.
 
NYC still has the San Gennaro festival, right? I thought that was the big one there. (I have not yet been to that one either.)

There are lots of “plague saints” for coronavirus. The pastors around here tend to pray to St. Damian, St. Marianne Cope, and St. John Neumann because during the flu pandemic 100 years ago, one parish around here invoked him (he wasn’t a saint yet) and they had no flu deaths in their parish. I made up my own Coronavirus Saint litany with various “plague saints” and it got pretty long.
 
San Gennaro’s size tends to fluctuate through the years in terms of participants and street vendors. I was told back when the Gambino Mafia family was still entrenched in NYC in the late '80s the festival was breathtakingly huge. Before my time though. Agrippina’s appeared a lot larger to me - although i only saw it from a distance.

Although since you bring up San Gennaro, Agrippina’s case makes more sense to me now. Except for NYC and Naples i’ve never heard of San Gennaro invoked often.

Re: Plague Saints - i think that’s why i went with the Fourteen Holy Helpers. St. Alphonsus Liguori has a prayer to them and i figured that if i can pray to them as a group, hopefully someone would answer.
 
“San Gennaro” is actually still on the calendar. “Gennaro” is his Italian name - he is the main patron of Naples.
He is better known to non-Italians as St. Januarius and his feast day is Sept. 19, and is an Optional Memorial.
He is a patron saint of blood banks, probably because his relic blood is reported to miraculously liquefy several times a year.

 
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