The life of St Matrona the Venerable
In her mid-twenties she began spending long hours at prayer in church, where two ascetic women she met there drew her further into a life of fasting and self-denial, a change that put her at odds with her husband.
To free herself for the life she had come to desire, she cut her hair, dressed as a man, and entered a monastery in the capital under a man's name, passing for a eunuch until her true identity was discovered and she was moved instead to a women's community. What followed was a long and eventful course, condensed here for length: fleeing her husband's continued search for her, she traveled through Jerusalem and Sinai before settling for a time in Beirut, where she lived in a former pagan shrine and gathered other women into monastic life there, turning some from paganism to the faith. She returned at last to Constantinople, where she was made abbess of a convent and became known for a gift of healing before her repose, remembered as a woman who had given up marriage, wealth, and settled place for a single-minded pursuit of God.
