Matrona of Perge
# Matrona of Perge

Matrona of Perge of the 6th century was a Byzantine female saint known for temporarily cross-dressing as the monk Babylos to avoid her husband after she decided to live following the sentence in chapter 7, verse 29 of the First Epistle to the Corinthians, "those who have wives [must] be [live] as if they had none", and also for not been a virgin female saint. She birth in Perge.

She also is known for opposing the Monophysite policy of the emperor Anastasios I. Matrona hid in the monastery of St. Bassion as the eunuch Babylos. Once revealed, she was sent to a woman's monastery where she was head of the convent. She was famous for her miraculous gift of healing. She went on to found a nunnery in Constantinople; nuns under the leadership of Matrona were granted a unique privilege by the local abbott, Basianus, "He did not give her woolen girdles and veils such as women were accustomed to wear, but men's wide black leather belts and men's white mantles. And these they wore continuously". St Matrona died at the age of 100. Her life was told through a vita prima whose author and exact time period remains a mystery.

