From the Prologue of Ochrid
Compelled by his parents, he married, but on the very day of the wedding he left both bride and parents and home and all, and withdrew into solitude for the great ascetic struggle. He practiced asceticism for fifty years. Only twice did he leave his cell during all that time. The first time he went out by order of the local bishop, to convert to the Christian faith a certain pagan village. The second time he went out to save his wayward niece Mary. He reposed peacefully in the year 360, in the seventieth year of his life on earth.
