5th century
Saint Eudocia the Empress
An educated Athenian who became a Byzantine empress and later withdrew to Jerusalem, where she founded monasteries.
Biography
Eudocia, daughter of the Athenian philosopher Leontius, was born in 401 and trained in grammar, rhetoric and philosophy. After her father's death she went to Constantinople to claim her inheritance, and there she married Emperor Theodosius II, having first been baptised a Christian.
Less drawn to court affairs, she preferred to visit the Holy Land, and later, when court intrigues cooled her relations with Theodosius, she settled permanently in Jerusalem. There she founded monasteries and spent her remaining years in prayer and study.