Originating in a pious Greek family of Prousse (Bithynie), "Sainte Argyrie" had just married. One of her Turkish neighbors fell madly in love with the young wife. He was pushed back in his proposals. Then, he denounced her near the local judge and proclaimed that she had been committed converting into Islam.

She was stopped and transferred in Constantinople to be judged. In front of her indicter, she repeated in spite of the blows and tortures, with calms and resolution, which she had never promised a conversion into Islam and which she was ready to die Christian. The successive audiences and imprisonments lasted seventeen years. The holy one did not yield to the pressures judges and women of "loose livings" which divided her cell.

She added to these ordeal the labours of the fast and the prayer. To suffer thus by love for Christ, filled her of a great joy. When a Christian rich person intervened to make her release, she refused to leave her prison, because she regarded it as a royal palate. She died thus in her dungeon and was buried by Christians. Three years later, one discovered her body which released a delicious perfume.