The life of St Anastasia the Venerable
There she built a small monastic house outside the city and settled into a life given wholly to God.
Word later reached her that the emperor, himself now widowed, intended to seek her out and make her his wife. Rather than face that fate, she withdrew further still, traveling to a remote desert community to beg the guidance of an elder named Daniel. To keep her safe from discovery, he disguised her in a monk's habit, gave her a man's name, and placed her alone in a hidden cave far from any settlement, bound to a rule of silence and solitude she was to keep unbroken. She remained there, unknown to anyone, for the rest of her days, and at her death she gave her spirit to God in words echoing those Christ himself had spoken from the cross. It was only when someone came afterward to bury her that her true identity, kept hidden through decades of solitary prayer, finally came to light. In later centuries her remains were brought to the capital she had once fled and laid to rest near its great cathedral.
