Pelagia

Saint. Born in Antioch.

Like St. John Chrysostom, who delivered two sermons about her, St. Pelagia was from Antioch. Determined to remain a virgin, at age 15 she turned away the many who admired her beauty. When she was seized by the soldiers of a magistrate intent upon claiming her, she jumped off the roof of a house so as not to allow dishonor. Wrote Chrysostom:

Behold this tender virgin, she knew only her own maiden bedchamber; suddenly soldiers burst into it and summoned her to the tribunal…. [I]t was a miracle that she could have answered them, found strength to look at them, to have open her mouth, to have breathed. There must have been something there stronger than human strength, something which came from God, for her to have kept so free and tranquil…. Pelagia thought of a ruse so unexpected and so wise that the soldiers were stunned. Calmly and gaily, feigning a change of mind, she asked them to let her withdraw a moment, just for long enough to put on the finery suited to a new bride. Not only had they no objection, but they declared they were pleased to be able to bring a girl nicely turned out to the judge. And she, walking with composure out of the room, ran up to the roof of the house and flung herself into space…. And so it was that St. Pelagia removed her body from impure attack; thus she delivered her soul for its ascent to heaven; thus she rendered innocuous her mortal remains and abandoned them to an enemy.

St. Pelagia's festival was celebrated on October 8, a day also assigned in the Greek synaxaria to two other saints named Pelagia. One of these is the Cilician Pelagia of Tarsus . The other, from Antioch like the Pelagia of Chrysostom, was also known as Margarito. Her story has become legendary, and it was argued by Herman Usener in his Legenden der heiligen Pelagia that she was not a true personage but rather a Christian travesty of Aphrodite. A celebrated dancer and courtesan, she was converted by the bishop Nonnus. This Pelagia was baptized and disguised herself in the dress of a male penitent. She entered a grotto on the Mount of Olives. Following three years of penance, she died there.