St. Mary of Egypt

Mary left home at twelve and lived for seventeen years in Alexandria as a woman of lust. She joined a pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the fun of it, but on the feast of the Cross an invisible force stopped her at the church door. She wept and prayed before an icon of the Theotokos, was let in, venerated the Cross, and then crossed the Jordan into the desert, where she lived alone for 47 years. The monk Zosimas met her there and gave her Holy Communion, and the next year he found her dead, and by tradition a lion helped him dig her grave. Her life is read in church in the fifth week of Lent.

• Feast: April 1 (New Calendar)
• Lived: 5th–6th century
• Place: Desert beyond the Jordan