Venerable Melania the Younger (of Rome)

Venerable Melania the Younger, of Roman senatorial nobility, was the granddaughter of Venerable Melania the Elder (already documented in our database as a separate entry, melania_the_elder) and daughter of Albina. At 13-14 she was married against her will to the young nobleman Valerius Pinian. The early deaths of their infant children turned both spouses toward asceticism.

Around age 20, with her husband's consent, she persuaded him to renounce marital relations and begin selling their vast estates — scattered across Italy, Gaul, Britain, Spain, Sicily, and Africa, valued at roughly 120,000 solidi — directing the funds toward freeing slaves and endowing churches and monasteries. Many of the freed slaves, tradition holds, followed the couple's example into ascetic life.

The couple traveled through North Africa (meeting Blessed Augustine of Hippo) and around 417 settled in Jerusalem, where Melania also visited Egyptian ascetic communities and maintained close ties with relatives, including Paula the Younger. Around 432 (after Pinian's death) and more fully by 438, she founded a women's monastery on the Mount of Olives housing about 90 nuns, as well as a men's monastery and a martyrium dedicated to the Protomartyr Stephen. She maintained a close relationship with Empress Athenais (Eudocia), whom tradition holds she healed of a foot ailment through prayer.

She died in Jerusalem in 438/439; tradition holds she was buried beside her mother and husband in the Chapel of the Apostles.

Her feast is kept on December 31/January 13.