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Elizabeth A.Sackler Center for Feminist Art

Athanarsa

b. circa 790, Aegina, Greece; d. 860, Aegina, Greece

The correct spelling of this name is ATHANASIA.

Athanasia was widowed sixteen days after her wedding, when her soldier husband was killed in battle. Her second marriage was to a religious man and together they decided to become a monk and a nun, converting their home into a convent and building churches. Athanasia served as an abbess and was known for miraculous healings of the ill and possessed. Increasing celebrity induced her to move to Constantinople, where she lived quietly in a monastery and was an advisor to Empress Theodora II. Seven years later, she returned to Aegina, where she died in 860.