St. Marina the Monk: The Iconography
JULY 17
According to the Golden Legend St. Marina the Monk passed as a man so she could enter the local monastery. When a neighbor's daughter became pregnant she blamed "Father Marinus." After the child was weaned the abbot ordered Marina to leave the monastery and raise the child, as in the first picture at right. Although innocent, Marina obeyed and raised the child in dire poverty.

Portraits usually have St. Marina in something like a monastic habit with a small child and a crucifix, as in the second picture at right. The third picture has her teaching the child about the crucifix in their very humble home. Her body lies in a glass case beneath that picture in the church of Santa Maria Formosa in Venice. She lived and died in Lebanon, but her body was translated Translation is the relocating of a saint's relics to a destination considered more suitable to Venice in 1231.

Prepared in 2019 by Richard Stracke, Emeritus Professor of English, Augusta University.

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Marina is told to take the child and leave the monastery, in a 14th-century manuscript of the Golden Legend. (See the description page.)


A typical portrait image of St. Marina the Monk. (See the description page.)


St. Marina teaching her child about the crucifix. (See the description page.)

ATTRIBUTES

  • Small child
  • Crucifix

MORE IMAGES

DATES

  • July 17 is observed in Maronite The Maronites are the Lebanese branch of Roman Catholicism, with their own liturgy and hierarchy. churches as St. Marina's feast day and in the Roman Martyrology as the day of her translation. the relocating of a saint's relics to a destination considered more suitable
  • The Golden Legend says she died on June 19.

BIOGRAPHY

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