Anastasia The Patrician

[Anastasia13]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anastasia_the_Patrician

 

"Saint Anastasia the Patrician (Anastasia Patricia) was the wife of a consul and a lady-in-waiting to the Byzantine empress Theodora. Justinian I, Theodora's husband, pursued her, arousing Theodora's jealousy. Anastasia tried to avoid any trouble and left for Egypt. She arrived at a place called Pempton, near Alexandria, where she founded a monastery which would later be named after her."

 

She dressed as a monk so that she could be a hermit because woman could not be hermits at the time. (St Apollinaria of Egypt, who also joined a men's monastery, taking the name Dorotheus.) I recently learned that Anastasia was accused of fathering a child and accepted harsh punishment for such in order to remain a monastic and raised the boy to become a monk. After her death, people felt guilty about the punishment when they found out that she was a woman-such was her passion for being a monastic.

 

She is a saint in the Catholic, Eastern Orthodox, and Coptic churches.

Edited November 8, 2013 by Light and Truth