Saint Pelagia the PenitentToday in the Orthodox Church we are celebrating a great holy mother of the Church in Antioch, the fourth- and fifth-century anchoress and former actress and prostitute Saint Pelagia. Saint Pelagia the Penitent shares a feast day with another Antiochian saint of the same name, a fifteen-year-old virgin-martyr who died in the third century, and with whom she is still occasionally confused.
According to her legend, Saint Pelagia [Gk. Πελαγία, Ar. Bilâjiyâ بلاجيا] was first named Margarita [Gk. Μαργαρίτα], meaning ‘Pearl’, and was renowned as the ‘foremost actress’ in Antioch. It was said she was raised by pagan parents. She grew up a comely and lively girl, blessed with ‘beautiful features and graceful limbs’, and she chose a profession which matched with her natural endowments. At first she behaved with a comportment as comely as her face, but soon enough she began to give into wanton and reckless pleasures. She discovered that she could make great wealth by selling her much-desired body, and she was soon the holder of much earthly wealth – gold, jewels, fine clothes, houses, land – but which despoiled and plundered her inward beauty, and the wealth of her spirit.
She was accustomed to riding about Antioch in a splendid carriage drawn by fine Arabian horses, thrown open so that she could be admired by the public. She perfumed herself and went about with her hair loose, taking pleasure in showing off her flawless skin and the curves of her body, bedecking it with jewels and sheer cloth woven through with gold. It happened at one time that she passed in front of the Church of Saint Julian in Antioch, where the saintly Bishop of Heliopolis, an Ægyptian monastic named Nonnus, was giving a sermon. The Christian faithful, the deacons and the priests all averted their eyes from her scantily-clad, voluptuous form – all except Saint Nonnus. When she had passed by, Saint Nonnus sighed and spoke to his congregation: ‘See how this woman takes care of her body, anointing it with expensive oils and showering it with gold and jewels – all for the sake of a man who will love her for one night. And do we take even a passing thought to care for our wretched souls in the same way, for the sake of the Immortal Lover of Mankind?’
Something drew Pelagia back to the Church of Saint Julian the following Sunday. As she passed by she heard the voice of Saint Nonnus as he delivered his homily. She listened as if enchanted, as Saint Nonnus discoursed upon the pleasures and bliss of Paradise, and the sufferings and terrors of Hell – all described in grim and unsparing detail. For the first time since she was a youth, Pelagia began to examine her own conscience, and she was overcome by a great wave of remorse for her wasted life, her pursuit of material goods. Stricken motionless for a moment by hesitation, she came down from her carriage and ran into the Church, throwing herself down at the feet of the Heliopolitan bishop, beseeching Saint Nonnus in this way: ‘Have mercy on me, a sinner, holy father! Baptise me and teach me repentance. I am a sea of iniquity, an abyss of destruction, a net and weapon of the devil.’
Without a second thought, Saint Nonnus was moved to embrace the penitent prostitute, and at once promised her baptism. He gave her into the hands of the deaconess of the Church of Saint Julian, a righteous widow named Romana, who would also serve as her godmother. It was Romana who catechised Pelagia in the precepts of the Christian Faith, and served for her as a model of the Christian life and the exercise of the virtues. But Pelagia’s best tutor was her own internal compunction. As she observed Romana’s way of living, she began to reflect on the frivolities of her earlier life, and made a resolution to reject all of the devil’s temptations. She freed all of her household slaves and gave them enough to live on out of her own goods. She gathered together all her valuables: her gold, her jewels, her costly oils, her carriage, her houses – and sold them, turning over all her goods to Saint Nonnus to be distributed to the poor. Saint Nonnus received these goods gladly, saying: ‘Let these be widely dispersed, so that these riches gained by sin may become a wealth of righteousness!’ The wealth of Saint Pelagia at once went to fill the bellies of those who were starving, make shelter over the heads of widows and orphans, and ease the troubles of the poor.
Saint Pelagia hereafter dressed herself only in poor clothes and a hair shirt, disguised herself as a man named Pelagios, and undertook a pilgrimage to Jerusalem. She earned the title of ‘the beardless monk’, and lived in seclusion in a lonely anchorage near the Jabal az-Zaytûn, a life of prayer and fasting and vigils. Bishop Nonnus did not forget about her, but sent word to her by one of his deacons, Iakobos, who visited her under the impression that she was a man. She did not reveal that she was a woman at all during the rest of her earthly life; this was only discovered after her blessed repose by those who came to tend to her relics. She was buried on Jabal az-Zaytûn, and her wonderworking tomb is still a place of pilgrimage for Palestinian and Antiochian Christians. Holy mother Pelagia, in repentance yet more beautiful than the natural beauties by which you charmed many, pray unto the only Lover of Mankind that He may save our souls!
Apolytikion to Saint Pelagia the Penitent, Tone 4:
Like a fragrant rose growing from thorns,
You were revealed to the Church through your virtuous deeds
Becoming a source of joy for the faithful.
You offered your life in sweet-smelling fragrance
To Him who made you wonderful.
Entreat Him to deliver us from every soul-destroying passion,
O righteous Pelagia!
No comments:
Post a Comment