Sophronius , the Patriarch of Jerusalem β Most of the information in this section is taken from this source. Saint Mary, also known as Maria Aegyptiaca, was born somewhere in the Province of Egypt , and at the age of twelve she ran away from her parents to the city of Alexandria.
Here she lived an extremely dissolute life. After seventeen years of this lifestyle, she traveled to Jerusalem for the Great Feasts of the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. She undertook the journey as a sort of "anti- pilgrimage ," stating that she hoped to find in the pilgrim crowds at Jerusalem even more partners in her lust. She paid for her passage by offering sexual favors to other pilgrims , and she continued her habitual lifestyle for a short time in Jerusalem.
Her Vita relates that when she tried to enter the Church of the Holy Sepulchre for the celebration, she was barred from doing so by an unseen force. Realizing that this was because of her impurity, she was struck with remorse, and upon seeing an icon of the Theotokos the Virgin Mary outside the church, she prayed for forgiveness and promised to give up the world i.
Then she attempted again to enter the church, and this time was permitted in. After venerating the relic of the true cross , she returned to the icon to give thanks, and heard a voice telling her, "If you cross the Jordan, you will find glorious rest. The next morning, she crossed the Jordan and retired to the desert to live the rest of her life as a hermit in penitence.
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She took with her only three loaves of bread, and once they were gone, lived only on what she could find in the wilderness. Approximately one year before her death, she recounted her life to Saint Zosimas of Palestine , [6] who encountered her in the desert. When he unexpectedly met her in the desert, she was completely naked and almost unrecognizable as human. She asked Zosimas to toss her his mantle to cover herself with, and then she narrated her life's story to him.
