Athanasia, Saint and Widow

Athanasia, Saint and Widow was abbess of Tymia, in Greece; and was born in the island of JEgina, about, the beginning of the 9th century, of noble and pious parents. She was first married, against her will, to an officer of the imperial army, who was soon killed; and the emperor Michael, having by an edict commanded all the marriageable virgins and widows to marry, she was compelled to receive a second husband, with whom she lived in the 'practice of every kind of penance and charitable work, and whom she finally induced to renounce the world; upon which she converted her house. into a religious community, which she ruled as abbess four years. At the end of that time she retired with her sisterhood into a desert place, to which she gave the name of Tymia, and where she died. The Greeks commemorate her on Aug. 14. See Baillet, Aug. 14.