The life of St Gorgonia
Those who knew her described a virtue and quiet modesty that they judged to surpass even the finest examples that had gone before her, and a rare gift for holding together the good of marriage and the good of a life set apart for God, without falling into the shortcomings either path could bring on its own.
She married a man named Alypius, from Iconium, and rather than being shaped merely by the ordinary demands of that marriage, she drew her husband instead toward her own depth of faith, becoming, in her brother's own account of her, more a partner to him in devotion than a wife simply governed by him. The couple had five children together, two sons who both grew up to become bishops in their own right, and three daughters, and Gorgonia's household became known as a place where the poor could always count on finding welcome. She died around the year 372, at thirty-nine. Nearly everything remembered of her today survives through the funeral oration her brother Gregory delivered in her honor not long after her death.
