Verena was an Egyptian Christian woman, traditionally regarded as a kinswoman or close associate of the martyrs of the Theban Legion, who made her way westward through Italy and into what is now Switzerland and spent her later decades as an anchoress serving the poor and sick. Her life is known primarily through hagiographic tradition rather than contemporary documents, but she became one of the most widely venerated saints of medieval Switzerland.
According to the tradition preserved in her vita, Verena was born in Thebes, Egypt, around 260 and received a Christian education from Bishop Chaeremon of Nilopolis. She traveled with members of the Theban Legion when they marched west, eventually learning of their martyrdom at Agaunum (modern Saint-Maurice-en-Valais, Switzerland) around 286. She is said to have helped bury the legionnaires there before settling near Salodurum (Solothurn), where she lived as a hermit and cared for lepers and the destitute. A period of imprisonment by a local governor is recorded in the tradition, during which a vision of Saint Maurice is said to have consoled her. She ultimately retired to a narrow cave near Zurzach (ancient Tenedo), where she died around 344.
