| Saint Domnina of Syria | |
|---|---|
| Died | ~460 Syria |
| Honored in | Maronite Church Roman Catholic Church Eastern Orthodox Church; |
| Feast | March 1 |
Saint Domnina of Syria, also known as Domnina the Younger,[1] was a 5th century ascetic.[2] Her name is mentioned in the Byzantine Synaxarium.[2] and according to Theodoret, bishop of Cyrrhus, Domnina was born to a rich Syrian family.[2]
She became a disciple of Saint Maron.[3]
As a young woman she constructed a straw-covered hut made with millet stalks[1] in the garden of her mother's house, located in Kyra near Antioch.[1]
She passed all of her life there, to the point where she became extremely thin.[2] She only ate lentils soaked in water[3] and went to church in the morning and in the evening. Domnina covered her face in a veil so that no one could see her face.[3] She had 250 female followers, who passed the time doing manual labor and "assigning their hands to card wool, and consecrating their tongues with hymns."[1]
Theodoret writes, in his Religious History (chap. XXX in Patrologia Graeca), that Domnina acquired such a state of religious ecstasy that she could not speak without weeping as she was considered to have been inspired by the love of God.[2]
She died between 450 and 460 AD.[3]