Venerable
Venerable Mother Anastasia
March 10 Old CalendarMarch 23 New Calendar
Life
Venerable Mother Anastasia was a patrician and lady at the court of Emperor Justinian. When she was widowed and saw that Empress Theodora bore her no goodwill, she suddenly disappeared from Constantinople and found herself in the Egyptian desert. The renowned spiritual father Abba Daniel tonsured her and presented her as the monk Anastasius the eunuch, at her own request, so that as a woman in male guise she might more easily be saved and also conceal herself from the emperor's searches for her. And Anastasia shut herself in a narrow cell where she spent twenty-eight years, and where she reposed in the year 563. Before her death, the elder Daniel saw her face shining like the sun.
From the Prologue from Ochrid by St. Nikolai Velimirovich, March 10. Translated by Marcian Sakarya, CC BY-SA 4.0.
Also commemorated on March 10
The full reading for March 10 includes the hymn of praise, a reflection, a contemplation and a homily.
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