Macarius, "moved by some interior impulse", insisted that Dorotheus heal the girl. Her sister had, in the meantime, become possessed by a demon, so her parents sent her to Macarius, who was famous for healing. She was able to disguise herself as a man and assumed the name Dorotheus. Īpollinaris made her way to Wadi El Natrun, a desert valley in the Nitrian Desert west of the Nile Delta, where she joined a large monastery of recluses living in caves and cells, run by Macarius of Alexandria. Her parents, when told of what happened, assumed that Apollinaris had entered a community of religious women. She fled into the desert, but her companions could not find her, even after eliciting the assistance of a local governor. On her way back home, while visiting the Egyptian coast, she escaped her companions, "assumed the monastic habit, and cast aside her worldly dress, with all its ornaments". Her parents permitted her to take a pilgrimage to Jerusalem, where she freed and dismissed all the slaves that accompanied her, except for an elderly man and a eunuch to prepare her tent, and bribed an old woman to procure a habit for her. She wanted to "retire completely from the world", like the Egyptian recluses she admired. Life Early life Īccording to the tale, Apollinaris' parents wanted her to marry a wealthy man at a young age, but she refused and persuaded them into allowing her to remain unmarried. 390) were added to her story to enhance her spiritual authority. It is probable that both the hagiographic association with the emperor of the Western Empire and her connection with Macarius of Alexandria (d. The 10th century Byzantine hagiographer Symeon the Metaphrast stated that Apollinaris was the daughter of the emperor Anthemius, but it is more likely that her father was a consular prefect in Constantinople. The legend of Theodora of Alexandria, like that of Apollinaris Syncletica, involves a holy woman and ascetic living as a male monk. She then appears as amma Syncletica, an anchorite whose sayings are included in the Apophthegmata Patrum, compiled c.480–500. Syncleticæ, a Greek hagiography purportedly by Athanasius of Alexandria (d. Her namesake Syncletica of Alexandria is the subject of the Vita S. Although Apollinaris Syncletica was listed as a saint in the Roman Martyrology, her story, set in late antiquity, is most likely apocryphal, and has been called "a pious fiction", "so much like a romance", and "a religious romance". The legend of Apollinaris Syncletica was likely based on those of Syncletica of Alexandria and Theodora of Alexandria, two of the Desert Mothers. Her story is most likely apocryphal and "turns on the familiar theme of a girl putting on male attire and living for many years undiscovered". Apollinaris Syncletica ( Medieval Greek: Απολινάριος Συγκλητική) was a saint and hermit of the 5th century, venerated in the Roman Catholic and Eastern Orthodox churches.
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