Considering an Ancient Transgender Saint

This is Euphrosyne of Alexandria, a saint in the Catholic and Greek Orthodox faiths. St. Euphrosyne was assigned female at birth, in the year 410, and was raised as a girl. But at age 18, Euphrosyne, with the assistance of two monks, entered a monastery, with shaved head and wearing men's garb, and became known as Brother Smaragdus. Smaragdus was highly respected for achieving a "perfect ascetic life." He was understood by the monastic community in which he lived for 38 years to be a eunuch. Those to whom he provided spiritual counsel included his own father, who did not recognize him. But on his deathbed, Smaragdus confessed his identity to his father, and asked his father to bury him so his secret would be preserved. His father was so moved by this revelation that he gave away all his possessions and became a monk himself, living in the cell that his child had occupied before him.

Miracles were reported to take place at the tomb. Then people learned that Smaragdus was also Euphrosyne. Did the church then revile this miracle-worker? No. They canonized this gender-transitioning person as St. Euphrosyne, framing them as a woman who had lived as a man in order to preserve "her" celibacy and in service to God.

The Greek Orthodox prayer to St. Euphrosyne is, "The image of God was faithfully preserved in you, O Mother. For you took up the Cross and followed Christ. By Your actions you taught us to look beyond the flesh for it passes, rather to be concerned about the soul which is immortal. Wherefore, O Holy Euphrosyne, your soul rejoices with the angels."

This is not a modern story of medicalized gender transition. And how Smaragdus/Euphrosyne understood themself, we cannot know. But what we can say is that the contemporary claim that Christianity requires people to live in the sex they were assigned at birth contradicts Christian history. And not just church history, but the contemporary practice under which people pray to St. Euphrosyne today. It is the interior soul that matters, not the flesh, says the prayer--and changing lived genders is one way to reveal that.