Venerable Athanasia of Aegina

Venerable Athanasia was born on the island of Aegina (Greece) to the devout Christian family of Niketas and Maria. Already at seven years old she had learned the Psalter by heart, reading it constantly with tender devotion, and from early childhood firmly resolved to devote herself to monastic life. However, at her parents' insistence, she was married twice; after the death of both husbands, having no children, she devoted herself entirely to God, taking monastic vows. She gathered several devout maidens around her and established a women's monastery, of which she became abbess, guiding the sisters by the example of a strict ascetic life of fasting and prayer. She acquired the gift of clairvoyance and performed numerous miracles during her lifetime. She reposed to the Lord on August 14, 860, on the eve of the feast of the Dormition of the Most Holy Theotokos, and was solemnly buried on the feast day itself. A year later her incorrupt relics were found, exuding myrrh, at which numerous healings took place. Her main commemoration in the Slavic tradition is kept on April 12/25.