Saint Markella

Description

Saint Markella (also Marcella) was an inhabitant of Fourteenth Century Chios, Greece who was canonized by the Greek Orthodox Church. Her feast day is celebrated on July 22.Saint Markella was born and lived in Volissos, Chios, Greece. She was raised as a devout Christian by her mother. However, her father (in some accounts) was a pagan.
Markella lived during the fourteenth century – during most of which Chios was under Genoese rule. At a young age, her mother died and Markella continued to study her Bible, pray to God and live a life according to what she was taught.
Around the time of her eighteenth birthday, the virtuous Markella had to flee the fury of her violent father. There are variant accounts given about the reasons for that. In one version, while Markella’s late mother had been a Christian, her father was an idolater and he tried very hard to force his daughter to become an idolater, too; this seems anachronistic, since by the 14th Century paganism was long since extinct in Greece. By another version, the problem was that Markella’s father was consumed with incestuous lust for her, and she fled in horror when he declared his intentions.