A Life of Servitude

…to follow in his footsteps lest she be left out on the streets to fend for her own. It was no easy task as to do so since it meant that she would have to conceal her identity and take on a different life as a boy. She called herself “Marinos” and lived a life of servitude among other monks in her town.

Marinos slowly gained the respect of his colleagues and was developing a good reputation through years of being a monk until one day, fate decided to play a cruel trick on the poor man. A woman had accused him of fathering her unborn child, telling the order that Marinos violated her and impregnated her in the process, a blatant lie that could have been proved wrong if only the monk came clean and divulged the truth behind his identity.

The Martyr

Being the wise and kind person that Saint Marina was, she decided to hide the truth and accept the accusation and pretended to be the father in order to prevent the child from growing up fatherless and neglected. The order banished her from the monastery, sending her out to beg on the streets, ironically the very reason that drove her to assume an alter-ego in the first place. She did her very best to provide for the poor child, devoting all she could to the little soul that her efforts were noticed. She was later invited back into the fold, with the child following in the footsteps of “Marinos,” becoming a monk himself.

It was only revealed upon her death that the monk known as Marinos was really a woman, proving that she was innocent of all blame thrown at her, making her a martyr for the sake of a poor child.