Seriograph icon crafted in canvas with gold background on carved wood.

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Saint Mary of Egypt

During the reign of Emperor Justinian, Saint Mary spending her young years in Egypt was a passionate, greedy and corrupted creature only desiring to satisfy her fleshly lust without receiving any price. For this purpose she travelled with hundreds other travelers to Jerusalem to the pilgrimage of the Holy Cross. When she tried to enter the temple to worship, she felt an unknown power preventing her to do so. She then stood before the icon of the Virgin Mary and asked Her for guidance. With Her support she advanced through the temple and genuflected. Listening to Her words she went to the desert where she spent forty seven years without encountering any human being. Sunburned, naked, victim of the heat and frost, she lived with prayers and penitence. At that same period, the monk Abba Zossimas, listening to God’s will, went to the monastery of Saint John the Baptist. According to the monastery rules, the monks should strive in the desert alone, during the Lent and come back on Palm Sunday to celebrate the Holy Week. There in the desert he encountered the weird figure of Saint Maria who asked him to return a year later to commune her. On Holy Thursday when all monks had returned to the monastery, Abba Zossimas stayed to commune Saint Maria; she then went away walking on the water of the river Jordan. Next year the Abba returned to commune her again but found her dead looking to the East. The life and strong will of Saint Maria’s faith led her to penitence and transcending. The church celebrates her memory on the E’ Fasting Sunday.

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Saint Mary of Egypt - Wooden icon in canvas with gold background on carved wood - Mount Athos