Baring-Gould’s sources: Modem Roman Martyrology. In the Greek Menology of Basil and the Mensea on Feb. 28. Authority: — Mention by Theodoret of Cyrus, in his history written about A.D. 440. He had seen the women himself.] Marana and Cyra, two women of Beraea, of noble birth, left their homes, found a little roofless hovel near the city, walled up the door with stones, plastered it over with clay, and left only a narrow slit for a window, through which they might receive food. They only spoke to those who came to see them once a year, at Pentecost. Not content with the squalor and solitude of their hut, they loaded themselves with masses of iron which bent them double.

Theodoret, who narrates this, was wont to look through the chink at the revolting sight of the ghastly women walled in, a mass of filth, crushed double with great rings and chains of iron. Thus they spent forty-two years, and then a yearning came on them to come forth and visit Jerusalem. The little door was accordingly broken open, and they crawled forth, visited the holy city, and crawled back again. Then they went off to visit the church of S. Thecla in Isauria. When they died is not known. They were, probably, alive still when Theodoret wrote. Baronius [Cardinal Baronius (d. 1607), church historian who edited the Roman Martyrology] has introduced them into the Modem Roman Martyrology.