Saint Mastridia of Jerusalem

Mastridia of Jerusalem (died c. 580) was a Christian saint and virgin hermit. Her feast day in the Orthodox Church is celebrated on February 20 (February 7 according to the Julian calendar). Her story is known from John Moschus’s work The Spiritual Meadow, and her name appears in the Prologue. According to her hagiography, Mastridia was a resident of Jerusalem. To escape the lustful advances of a young man who was in love with her, she took a basket of soaked beans and retreated into the desert. Some time later, she was encountered in the desert by a hermit who began to ask her what she was doing there. Mastridia told him the reason she had become a hermit and described her life in the wilderness: "How long have you lived here?" "By the grace of Christ, seventeen years." "But how have you sustained yourself?" The hermit, pointing to the basket of soaked beans, replied: "This very basket you see came out of the city with me. It contained a few of these beans... But God has shown such mercy to me, unworthy as I am, that I have been eating from them all this time, and they do not diminish." Archbishop Philaret (Gumilevsky) believed that Mastridia of Jerusalem died no later than 580.