The first of March in the Orthodox Church is also the feast-day of Saint Domnina, a fifth-century Syrian ascetic who was known to Blessed Theodoret of Kyrrhos. She was born to a wealthy family, but early on became a disciple of Saint Mârûn. He writes about her in his Religious History, as follows.
Emulating the life of the inspired Maron, whom we recalled above, the wonderful Domnina set up a small hut in the garden of her mother’s house; her hut is made up of millet stalks. Passing the whole day there, she wets with incessant tears not only her cheeks but also her garments of hair, for such is the clothing with which she covers her body. Going at cockcrow to the divine shrine nearby, she offers hymnody to the Master of the universe, together with the rest, both men and women. This she does not only at the beginning of the day but also at its close, thinking the place consecrated to God to be more venerable than every other spot and teaching others so. Judging it, for this reason, worthy of every attention, she has persuaded her mother and brothers to spend their fortune on it.Holy ascetic and martyr Domnina, worthy inheritor of the gift of tears, pray unto Christ our God that our souls may be saved!
As food she has lentils soaked in water; and she endures all this labour with a body reduced to a skeleton and half-dead – for her skin is very thin, and covers her thin bones as if with a film, while her fat and flesh have been worn away by labours. Though exposed to all who wish to see her, both men and women, she neither sees a face nor shows her face to another, but is literally covered up by her cloak and bent down onto her knees, while she speaks extremely softly and indistinctly, always making her remarks with tears. She has often taken my hand, and after placing it on her eyes, released it so soaked that my very hand dripped tears. What discourse could give due praise to a woman who with such wealth of philosophy weeps and wails and sighs like those living in extreme poverty? For it is fervent love for God that begets these tears, firing the mind to divine contemplation, stinging it with pricks and urging it on to migrate from here.
Though spending in this way both the day and the night, nor does she neglect the other forms of virtue, but ministers, as far as she can, to the heroic contestants, both those we have mentioned and those we have omitted. She also ministers to those who come to see her, bidding them stay with the shepherd of the village and sending them all they may need herself, for the property of her mother and brothers is available for her to spend, since it reaps a blessing through her. To myself too when I arrived at this place—it is to the south of our region—she sent rolls, fruit and soaked lentils.
But how long I can expatiate in my eagerness to relate all her virtue, when I ought to bring into the open the life of the other women who have imitated both her and those we recalled above? For there are many others, of whom some have embraced the solitary life and others have preferred life with many companions – in such a way that communities of two hundred and fifty, or more, or less, share the same life, putting up with the same food, choosing to sleep on rush-mats alone, assigning their hands to card wool, and consecrating their tongues with hymns.
Myriad and defeating enumeration are the philosophic retreats of this kind not only in our region but throughout the East; full of them are Palestine, Egypt, Asia, Pontus and all Europe. From the time when Christ the Master honoured virginity by being born of a virgin, nature has sprouted meadows of virginity and offered those fragrant and unfading flowers to the Creator, not separating virtue into male and female nor dividing philosophy into two categories. For the difference is one of bodies not of souls: ‘in Christ Jesus,’ according to the divine Apostle, ‘there is neither male nor female’. And a single faith has been given to men and women: ‘there is one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and through all and in us all’. And it is one kingdom of heaven which the Umpire has set before the victors, fixing this common prize for the contests.
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