Saint Mary of Egypt
Desert ascetic and penitent
- Feast day
- April 1
- Lived
- c. 344–c. 421
- Patronage
- Penitents, those struggling with the passions, converts
Saint Mary of Egypt is the icon of repentance in the Orthodox Church. Her life is read aloud in every parish during the Great Canon in the fifth week of Great Lent, and the fifth Sunday of Lent is dedicated to her.
Life
Mary left home in Alexandria at twelve and lived for seventeen years in unrestrained licentiousness, by her own account not even for money but out of insatiable desire. Joining a pilgrim ship to Jerusalem for the feast of the Exaltation of the Cross, she found herself physically unable to cross the threshold of the church of the Holy Sepulchre — an invisible force held her back three times.
Standing before an icon of the Theotokos in the courtyard, she wept and promised to renounce her life if she were allowed to venerate the Cross. She entered freely, and afterwards a voice told her to cross the Jordan. She bought three loaves and walked into the desert, where she remained for forty-seven years, seeing no human face.
The meeting with Zosimas
The priest-monk Zosimas found her in the desert, burnt black by the sun, her clothes long since disintegrated. She knew his name without being told, quoted Scripture she had never read, and prayed suspended above the ground. She asked him to return in a year with Holy Communion, and met him at the Jordan, crossing the water on foot.
The following year Zosimas found her body with an inscription in the sand asking for burial. Tradition says a lion helped him dig the grave. Her life was written down by Saint Sophronius, Patriarch of Jerusalem.
Frequently asked
- Why is she read during Great Lent?
- Her life is the Church's clearest answer to despair: no sin is too great for repentance. It is read at the Thursday matins of the fifth week, together with the Great Canon of Saint Andrew of Crete.