Mastridia of Jerusalem

Venerable Mastridia of Jerusalem was a virgin and hermit who died about the year 580. The Orthodox Church commemorates her on 7 February by the old calendar (20 February on the new style).

The story about her is known from the Spiritual Meadow of John Moschos, and her name from the Prologue. According to her life, Mastridia was from Jerusalem. To escape the desire of a young man in love with her, and to keep both of them from sin, she took a basket of soaked beans and went away into the desert. After some time a hermit met her there and began to ask her what she was doing in the desert. Mastridia told him the reason why she had become a hermit and about her life in the desert. How long have you lived here? asked the hermit. By the grace of Christ, seventeen years. But how did you feed yourself? She showed him the basket of soaked beans and answered: This very basket, which you see, came out with me from the city. There were a few of these beans in it. But God showed me, unworthy as I am, such mercy that for so long I have fed on them, and they do not diminish. A source adds that her clothing never wore out.

Archbishop Philaret (Gumilevsky) holds that Mastridia of Jerusalem died not later than the year 580.