Venerable Pelagia the Penitent
Saint Pelagia the Penitent was converted to
Christianity by Saint Nonnus, Bishop of Edessa (Saturday of Cheesefare Week).
Before her acceptance of Christianity through Baptism, Pelagia was head of a
dance troupe in Palestinian Antioch, living a life of frivolity and
prostitution.
One day Pelagia, elegantly dressed, was making her way
past a church where Saint Nonnus was preaching a sermon. Believers turned their
faces away from the sinner, but the bishop glanced after her. Struck by the
outer beauty of Pelagia and having foreseen the spiritual greatness within her,
the saint prayed in his cell for a long time to the Lord for the sinner. He
told his fellow bishops that the prostitute put them all to shame. He explained
that she took great care to adorn her body in order to appear beautiful in the
eyes of men. “We... take no thought for the adornment of our wretched souls,”
he said.
On the following day, when Saint Nonnus was teaching
in the church about the dread Last Judgment and its consequences, Pelagia came.
The teaching made a tremendous impression upon her. With the fear of God and
weeping tears of repentance, she asked the saint for Baptism. Seeing her
sincere and full repentance, Bishop Nonnus baptized her.
By night the devil appeared to Pelagia, urging her to
return to her former life. The saint prayed, signed herself with the Sign of
the Cross, and the devil vanished.
Three days after her baptism, Saint Pelagia gathered
up her valuables and took them to Bishop Nonnus. The bishop ordered that they be
distributed among the poor saying, “Let this be widely dispersed, so that these
riches gained by sin may become a wealth of righteousness.” After this Saint
Pelagia journeyed to Jerusalem to the Mount of Olives. She lived there in a
cell, disguised as the monk Pelagius, living ascetic seclusion, and attaining
great spiritual gifts. When she died, she was buried in her cell.
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