Though I am absolutely intrigued by a great many saints, the story of Marina the Monk gives me pause. It’s an odd story, but one I hope you’ll find as moving as I do.
St. Marina—often called Marinos, which I’ll explain later—was born in the fifth century to wealthy Christian parents. When she was still quite young, her mother passed away, leaving her in the care of her father, Eugenius. Eugenius was a profoundly devout man with a certain orientation toward the early monastic tradition, meaning he desired a life of solitude and asceticism. He therefore arranged for his daughter to be married off, so that he might enter the monastery. Marina, being equally devout, pleaded with her father to allow her to come with him so as neither to marry nor to be abandoned.
At the time, monasteries were exclusively for men. Realizing she could not enter the monastery as a woman, Marina and her father came to the conclusion that she would take on a male identity. “Brother Marinos,” as she came to be known, entered the monastery alongside her father, and her secret remained, for a time, intact.
Years later, Marina and several other monks were away on monastery business and stayed at an inn. That same night, a soldier slept with the innkeeper’s daughter. When she became pregnant, she claimed that Brother Marinos was the father. Whether out of fear, confusion, or convenience, the blame fell on Marina.
Naturally, the monks were scandalized. Nevertheless, Marina refused to protest or in any way assert her innocence, and so she was expelled from the community. She was forced to care for a child that was not her own, living in poverty outside the gates of the monastery. Still, she said nothing. She carried this cross in silence.
Years passed. Eventually, the monks relented and allowed Marina to return, but only as the least among them: a servant. She accepted this and endured it for the rest of her life. She washed floors, cared for the infirm, and kept her identity hidden. Only after her death, as the monks prepared her body for burial, did they discover the truth. Brother Marinos was, well, a woman. The monks were overwhelmed with shame at the tremendous injustice they had committed. Only then did they realize they had cast out a saint: one who had borne false accusation and years of hardship without a word of complaint.
In the end, the innkeeper’s daughter—when confronted with the truth—repented and confessed her lie. The monastery took in Marina’s adopted child, who eventually became a monk as well.
There is something hauntingly Christlike in the life of St. Marina. Her story is not one of glory, but of quiet suffering, silent obedience, and profound misrecognition. Yet it is precisely this hiddenness—this radical anonymity, if you will—that draws her so near to the figure of the suffering servant in Isaiah. Marina is misunderstood, wrongly accused, and cast aside, yet she never speaks a word in her own defense. “[She] was oppressed, and [she] was afflicted, yet [she] opened not her mouth; like a lamb that is led to the slaughter… [she] did not open her mouth.”
There is, in this silence, a theological depth that resists modern sensibilities. We are trained to defend ourselves, to assert our innocence, to correct the record. Marina does none of that. She suffers humiliation because she was strong in the way that only saints are. Her strength is cruciform and by its very nature ascetic, truly monastic. She received dignity from God alone, and she becomes, in the truest sense, an image of Christ, which is reflected both in the way she lived and in her suffering.
What’s nearly incomprehensible to the modern mind is that her vindication comes only after death, and even more unsettlingly, she never asks for it. Like the suffering servant, she entrusts her soul to the God who judges righteously. She offers her life as a prayer, and her silence becomes intercession.
Perhaps that’s the deepest mystery here. Holiness so often wears the garments of humiliation. Marina reminds us that the Christian life is not always lived in the light of public affirmation, but more often in the obscurity of hidden fidelity. She is forgotten, dishonored, buried—and only later recognized for the saint she was.
In the end, the story of Marina invites us to a different way of seeing. It draws us toward a faith that is participatory, inherently childlike. A faith that, like hers, is willing to become small, misunderstood, even broken—so long as it remains united to Christ. This is the logic of the Cross. This is the paradox of the Suffering Servant: that in what the world rejects, God reveals His glory
St. Marina’s feast day is June 18th for my Roman friends, and is celebrated elsewhere on July 17th.
Sacnta Marina,
Ora pro nobis
Amazing story. Thanks for posting