Venerable Piama (Piamoun) of Alexandria

NAME CLARIFICATION: the standard liturgical epithet in most sources (azbyka.ru, obitel-minsk.ru) is "of Alexandria," not "of Egypt"; both are geographically correct (Alexandria is a city in Egypt), but "of Alexandria" is adopted as the primary designation, with "of Egypt" retained as an alternate.

Venerable Piama (Piamoun) of Alexandria was a virgin ascetic who lived in the 3rd–4th centuries near Alexandria in Egypt. She lived as a recluse in her mother's house, receiving no visitors, taking only meager food once a day in the evening, and spinning flax after prayer, spending all her time in fasting and unceasing prayer. For such asceticism the Lord granted her the gift of clairvoyance.

When the inhabitants of a stronger neighboring village plotted to attack her village so as to divert the Nile floodwaters solely to their own fields, an angel of the Lord revealed the wicked plan to the saint. The village elders begged her to confront the attackers in person, but having long renounced human company, she refused, spending the whole night in prayer instead, entreating the Lord to avert the impending crime.

The next morning the armed attackers suddenly froze in place and could go no further, until they realized they had been stopped by the prayers of the virgin Piama, whereupon they repented and made peace with their neighbors. Venerable Piama peacefully reposed to the Lord in 337.