St. Marina

The historical facts about St. Marina are uncertain. She lived in Bithynia in the eighth century. According to a legend, she was the daughter of Eugenius, a native of Bithynia who became a monk; he took his little daughter with him to the monastery, dressing her as a boy. When Marina was seventeen her father died and she stayed on as a monk by continuing to pretend to be male. When she was accused of making an innkeeper’s daughter pregnant, she was expelled from the monastery. She lived by begging at the monastery gate and accepted the care of the illegitimate child when his grandfather, still believing that Marina was a man, made her take the boy she had supposedly “fathered.” Her “son” and she were readmitted to the monastery, where she was made to do severe penance. Her sex became known only after her death. Scholars think that most of this story is a legend; there are similar stories of early women saints masquerading as males in order to become monks. St. Marina did exist and her virtues and miracles are recorded in the lives of the desert fathers. Her feast is June 18. St. Margaret, one of the Fourteen Holy Helpers is also sometimes also called Marina.