Saint Marinos, the Transgender Man from Ancient Syria

If you’re a trans person, or just a decent person in general, I’m betting you may have some hostility toward Christianity. 

That’s understandable. Given how bloody noisy the world is these days, it’s easy to find yourself drawn into the idea that Christians and trans people are natural enemies. 

But as the history of Christianity shows us, that’s not necessarily the case. 

As we’ve talked about before on this channel, the modern idea of the gender binary is nowhere near as cut and dry as people think.

And that’s as true in the history of Christianity as it is anywhere else. 

If this is your first time joining us, welcome.

This is NOT a channel about Christianity. I’m not a Christian apologist. My goal is not to convince you of any spiritual or religious belief. Even if I wanted to do that, which I don’t, I’d have to have a particularly strong faith to try it, which I don’t. 

But nor is this a channel that dunks on Christianity. It’s not productive to condescend to anyone about their spirituality. I’m not a reddit atheist. We left that behind in 2012, back when the world ended, remember? And we’ve all been in purgatory since then. 

No, this is about history. Our history. 

I’m Sophie, and this is We Have Always Existed. It’s a show where we explore the wealth of knowledge available about transgender history in the ancient Mediterranean. 

And I go where the evidence takes me. That includes, believe it or not, the early history of Christianity. 

This isn’t the first time we’ve found ourselves here, and I know it’s not always the most popular topic. The last time I did a video on a trans saint, it was a bit of a flop. To this day, it’s one of my poorest-performing video essays, and I’m not sure whether it’s because it’s a trans masculine topic or a Christian topic, both of which tend to be less popular with you lot. But either way, nobody seemed to care much about Saint Pelagius, despite how blatantly trans his story is. 

Justice for Saint Pelagius! 

But Pelagius isn’t the only transgender saint out there. The fact that this exists is proof of that. And that’s all the proof I’m providing. 

Thanks everyone, like, comment, subsc-

Today, we’re going to explore the story of Saint Marinos. Known as “Marina the Monk” in the histories, Marinos is clearly a trans masculine figure. And I’m sorry for deadnaming him, but if you want to find out more about him on your own after this video, you’ll need to know that name because there are several different saints named Marinos or Marina, and “Marina the Monk” will help you narrow it down. It’s all in the name of history, after all. 

But if the story is true, then Marinos is in heaven. And if he’s in heaven, he doesn’t have a gender anymore, because as we talked about in the first video on gender in ancient Christianity, nonbinariness is next to godliness. So based on his own beliefs, he probably won’t be too concerned either way. 

Anyway, when it comes to exploring the stories of historical individuals, here’s how we generally approach it. 

First, we’ll take a moment to understand the time and place in which Marinos lived. Then, we’ll analyze the sources we have, and see if we can piece together a narrative of his life. Once we’ve told his story, we’ll try to answer two key questions: Was Marinos a real person? And if so, was Marinos a transgender figure?  

Let’s take a look. 

Chapter 1: Where (and When) in the World is Saint Marinos?

Marinos’ life is difficult to pin down. I’ve seen suggestions that range from the 5th to the 8th century CE (Constas 2, Hourani 20).

However, Catholic scholar Léon Clugnet, who wrote a massive tome analyzing the life of Marinos back in the early 1900’s, seems to think he lived in the 5^th century (276). 

Modern scholar Guita G. Hourani seems to agree with him (20), and I haven’t seen any strong arguments to the contrary.

So let’s start there. St. Marinos probably lived during the 5^th century CE. 

And the era of the “ancient Mediterranean,” which is what interests me, ends in the late 5th century CE. So, Marinos is within my historical purview, barely. 

RELATED: Transgender Historical Figures

Okay, well what about where he lived? It’s a big world, after all. 

I’ve seen various texts claiming he lived in Bithynia, Thrace, Alexandria, the desert in Egypt, Italy, Romania, and on and on (Clugnet 112). 

Where is this guy from? 

There aren’t any written sources that make a definitive argument for it, but Marinos’ story comes from the Maronite tradition.

According to Maronite tradition, Marinos was one of them, and the general scholarly opinion seems to agree(Clugnet 276, Hourani 20). We don’t have any stronger claims to Marinos’ origin than that, so we’ll go with that too. 

I know there’s a lot of imprecision here, but that’s what we have to work with. So, we’ll just look at 5th-century Lebanon.

Otherwise, I’ll have to give a long, drawn-out history of all the other places and time periods I mentioned above, and yeah, no. I’m already long-winded enough as it is. 

What we now call Lebanon became part of the Roman state during the Third Mithradatic War.

If you saw the video on Hypsikrates, this might sound familiar.

After King Mithradates’ disastrous defeat at the hands of the Roman general Pompey, he fled north. That gave Pompey the chance to conquer Mithradates’ former territories and that of his allies, including Lebanon (Plut. Vit. Pomp. XXXIX).

In the 1^st century CE, it was organized into the province of Syria, which is different than the modern country of Syria.

At the time, its territory comprised parts of modern-day Syria, Turkey, and, of course, Lebanon (Dunbabin 160). So just know that as I refer to it as Syria, it’s not the same as the Syria we know of today. 

The capital of Roman Syria was the city of Antioch. Sadly, there isn’t much left of it today, after it was attacked by overwhelming Zerg forces.

It’s easy to assume that Roman Syria was kind of out in the boonies, since it’s so far from the imperial core. But Antioch was one of the wealthiest and most important cities in the Roman world. Only Rome, Alexandria, and later Constantinople rivaled it. H. W. Morton, who wrote a book chronicling his travels around the Mediterranean following the path of St. Paul the Apostle, described it like so, quote:

It was a city of consumers. It was full of rich aristocrats and nouveaux riches, and of wealthy, retired people who sought here one of the finest climates in the world. 

– H. W. Morton – In the Steps of St. Paul, 84

Of course, St. Paul lived in the 1^st century CE, and Marinos lived in the 5^th. But this gives you an idea of the area’s importance. 

We can see how wealthy it was from some of the spectacular mosaics we’ve recovered from the area.

You can see some of them on the screen below.

Man, Roman mosaics are so cool.

Anyway, things in Roman Syria were relatively peaceful during the Pax Romana. But like much of the empire, things became difficult during the Third Century Crisis.

That was a series of crises that happened in the third century.

It happened because they called it the Third Century Crisis. If they had named it the Third Century Prosperous, it would have gone a lot better, but they didn’t. Way to bungle that one, lads. It’s considered to have started following the death of Severus Alexander, Elagabalus’ successor. 

RELATED: Elagabalus and the North Hertfordshire Museum

Anyway, Roman Syria was invaded in 252/253 CE by the Sassanid Persian King Shapur I, and again in 259/260 CE, when Shapur captured the Roman Emperor Valerian in battle.

The writer Lactantius – we talked about him in the video on Teiresias – tells us Shapur used the captive Valerian as a footstool.

That’s likely an exaggeration, but even if Shapur treated him (relatively) well, I imagine it would have been rough to go from being an emperor to a slave. 

If you’d like to know more about Valerian, friend of the channel Tribunate has a great video on his story.

He talks about what happens when an arrogant, expansionist empire well past its prime overplays its hand in a war against Iran, which probably can’t teach us anything today. 

A few years later, Syria broke away from the Roman empire, becoming part of the Palmyrene Empire in 268, but was brought back into the fold in 273. And there it would stay until at least the 7^th century CE, when it was captured by the Rashidun Caliphate. And since that’s after the death of Marinos, we’ll stop there. 

So, who lived in Roman Syria? 

There would, of course, have been Romans who spoke Latin in the area.

But we’d also find a substantial population of Greeks, Macedonians, Babylonians, Jews, Persians, Thracians, Phoenicians… it was a pretty cosmopolitan place.

In terms of local culture, you’d see influences from each of these (Di Giorgi 165-170). 

But it was also an important place for early Christians. In fact, the Book of Acts in the Bible tells us the followers of Christ were first called Christian in the city, quote: 

Then Barnabas went to Tarsus to look for Saul; and when he had found him, he brought him to Antioch. So it was that for an entire year they met with the church and taught a great many people, and it was in Antioch that the disciples were first called “Christians.”

– Acts 11:25-26 (NIV)

It’s easy to think that meant everyone was a Christian now, but that’s hardly the case.

Does everyone always follow every law? Of course not. 

For example, just the other day I jaywalked, and now I’m sentenced to 5 years of hard labour in Canadian woke socialist jail. Support my Gofundme, link in the description. 

[for legal reasons, this is a joke]

So even though Theodosius was known for being increasingly harsh toward pagans during his reign, we also know the Emperor Justinian passed laws against pagans during his reign in the 6th century CE (Swartz 137-8).

So while pagan worship practices wouldn’t have carried as much pomp and circumstance as they once did, they were clearly still happening. 

There’s no need to pass laws banning things nobody’s doing, y’know? 

In particular, check out this mosaic.

This dates to probably the 4th century CE from Apamea, another city in Roman Syria south of Antioch.

It was buried under a 6th-century Christian church.

At the time, the newly asserted dominance of Christianity would have been met with some resistance from devoted pagans, as illustrated here.

Socrates is positioned almost as a Christ-like figure, surrounded by his disciples as he teaches them.

We could read this as an assertion that pagan values are superior to Christian ones (Hanfman 207-8, Dunbabin 169).

And only the wealthy would have been able to afford to commission mosaics like this, so this must have belonged to someone fairly influential.

Neato. 

The region was also prone to earthquakes.

In fact, it lies along the same fault line that makes Cyprus so susceptible to them as well (Scalera).

This meant things had to be rebuilt fairly often. 

So, this is what the region was like.

Lots of different peoples, and lots of different cultures, largely coexisting, and a lot of wealth as well.

Other than the obvious difference in technology, in some ways Antioch might not feel that much different from a modern cosmopolitan city. 

But of course, that’s city life. Like anywhere, the big cities are surrounded by rural areas that differ in character quite a bit. 

According to Maronite tradition, Marinos lived at the monastery at Qannoubine, which is a real place (Hourani 20).

It’s still there today, in fact.

It’s in the Ouadi Qadisha, the holy valley, southeast of modern-day Tripoli and about 300 kilometres south of Antioch. There are plenty of monasteries in the Ouadi Qadisha, so much so that it was declared a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1998 (UNESCO). 

It’s a pretty remote area, and its complex terrain makes it difficult to traverse. This makes it great for nature lovers and hikers today. It also means that when Christians faced persecution, it was a useful place for them to flee to. There are 100 archaeological sites in the area dating from antiquity onward. It’s a really special place (Chaaya 23).

But I’ve had some real difficulty finding any sources on the Qannoubine Monastery in particular. I understand most of the good stuff is in Arabic, which I can’t read.

So, one of my citations is the course notes from the 2013 curriculum at the Maronite Academy hosted on an old Tripod site, which, incredibly, still exists. It’s not the best source but what can I do? 

Remember Tripod?

Once upon a time, it was a lot harder to create content for the internet. Back in my day, you needed to learn basic HTML to build a fan site and a forum if you wanted to talk about Buffy the Vampire Slayer on the internet, and Tripod was one of the places you could do it. I was more of a Geocities gal myself.

I can’t believe it still exists. And you can still use it to build a website too! 

THIS VIDEO IS SPONSORED BY TRIPOD

Look, it’s better than being sponsored by Ground News, the website that claims CNN is “left leaning”.

What a joke.

If you think any news agency owned by an American multinational conglomerate can possibly be “left leaning”, I don’t know what to tell you bud.

A bias toward Democrats doesn’t make something left leaning. 

Support me on Patreon so I don’t have to take a Ground News sponsorship! 

The name comes from the Syriac word for “group” or “company” or “homies whomst like praying a lot”. It’s carved into a rock face, which means some of its rooms are pretty cavernous.

Anyway, the Maronites who live in Qannoubine today believe that Marinos lived there. We don’t really have any evidence to the contrary, but also this is an oral tradition, which is a different kind of evidence than written histories. Still valid, but different. More on that later. 

But to the best of our knowledge, Marinos lived in the 5^th century CE in Qannoubine Monastery, in the Roman province of Syria. 

Chapter II: The Life of St. Marinos

We actually have a bunch of different manuscripts telling us of the life of Marinos.

We’ve found manuscripts of his story in Greek, Latin, Syriac, Coptic, and Ge’ez, then later in Arabic, German, and French.

Popular dude.

It’s thought that all of these came from an original Greek text, which is now lost.

The Latin version is the oldest, and is probably the closest thing we’ve got to the original (Clugnet II-IV). 

In fact, it’s thought that it might be originally an oral history that was eventually written down (Richard 86-87).

The oldest manuscript we have of it today is from the 10th century CE, but the story itself is obviously much older (Constans 2).

So we’ll start there. 

I want to also point out that the story refers to Marinos in both masculine and feminine forms.

Obviously, the respectful thing to do is to change the feminine language to masculine, and I’ll do that as much as possible.

But the way the story is written, it doesn’t fully make sense to do so all the time.

So I hope you’ll all forgive me for the imprecision in the language here. 

We’re told about a man named Eugenios, who was particularly devoted to God.

When his wife died, he raised his daughter Marina, who’s sometimes also called Mary, by himself, teaching her the ways of Christian piety.

But when she was an adult, he told her he wanted to go off to live in a monastery to save his soul. 

Marina was sad about this, since Eugenios was the only family she had.

But at the same time, women weren’t allowed to enter monasteries.

After all, as Eugenios tells us, “it is through the members of your sex that the devil wages war on the servants of God.” 

Super cool misogyny there, gotta love that. 

Man, every time I talk about trans men in history we gotta deal with misogyny too.

I don’t love that. Sorry, gentlemen. 

Anyway, Marina had an easy solution to this.

She said, “I shall not enter the monastery as you say, but I shall first cut off the hair of my head, and clothe myself like a man, and then enter the monastery with you.” 

And golly, that’s an awfully quick solution to come up with right on the spot there, huh?

Like, that’s the first solution that comes to mind?

There aren’t any other possible options?

You’re just going to trans your gender because otherwise you’d miss your dad?

Or maybe this is a chance for you to do something you’ve always thought about but never had the opportunity to pursue? 

The monastery they joined was different than the one we talked about in the video on Pelagius.

Pelagius lived in quiet solitude and asceticism near Jerusalem, denying himself worldly pleasures. But Marinos and his dad Eugenios joined an order at Qannoubine, who were cenobites. 

So they did have a social life and even interacted with people outside their order.

This particular monastery had 40 monks living in it.

The two were greeted and welcomed into the monastery, where the abbot, the head monk, told them, “We have such sights to show you” – damn it, not those cenobites. 

From there, Marinos lived as a monk in prayer and devotion.

The other monks thought he may have been a eunuch because he had no beard and a softer voice. 

RELATED: Eunuchs in the Roman World

He also practiced asceticism, which is the practice of denial of worldly pleasures and desires.

Usually that means not eating much, and that’s the case for Marinos.

We’re told he only ate every other day. This, of course, would also have been a convenient excuse for why Marinos was smaller than the other monks. 

Eventually, Eugenios passed away, but Marinos stayed in the monastery doing his thing.

He was so devoted to prayer and fasting that he received the gift of exorcism.

Those who were possessed by demons were healed simply by his touch. 

Once a month, four of the monks would leave the monastery and tend to the needs of the hermit monks who lived outside.

They often stopped at a particular inn along the way because the innkeeper was a friendly and gracious host. 

But Marinos never went.

The abbot called him out on it one day, saying the other monks were annoyed about it.

Marinos agreed to go, but he was clearly hesitant to do so since he’d never volunteered to go before.

Perhaps he was concerned about being discovered?

I don’t know, the text doesn’t tell us. 

Anyway, Marinos headed off with three other monks, and they stayed at that inn with the friendly innkeeper I mentioned.

But I guess a Roman soldier who was also staying there had slept with the innkeeper’s daughter and knocked her up.

He told her to blame Marinos if her dad found out, which he did, so she did. 

The innkeeper made a stink about it to the abbot, so the abbot confronted Marinos about it. 

Now, you and I understand that Marinos couldn’t have done what he was accused of doing.

So at this point, our boy had two options. 

He could reveal his transness to the abbot, or he could accept his punishment as a man for an indiscretion he didn’t commit.

Either way, he’d certainly be ejected from the monastery.

Neither women nor philanderers were welcome in such a place. 

But if he didn’t prove his innocence, he’d still be recognized as a man.

A contemptible man and a hypocrite, but a man nonetheless. 

So, he threw himself on the ground, saying “Forgive me, father, for I have sinned as a man.”

In response, the abbot banished him from the monastery. 

So, he took up residence outside the monastery gate, and there he stayed.

Through the high heat of summer and the bitter cold of winter, he endured the elements in penance for a sin he’d never committed. 

Later, the innkeeper’s daughter gave birth to a baby boy.

The innkeeper took the baby and gave it to Marinos, saying, “Here is the child which you have wickedly engendered. Take it.”

Marinos wasn’t going to just let the baby die, even if it wasn’t his, so he got some milk from a local shepherd and cared for him.

After all, forgiveness of sins is one of the key elements of the Christian faith.

If they couldn’t forgive someone who has repented and atoned for his sins, how could they expect the same from God? 

This moved the abbot, so he allowed Marinos to return, but he could only do so as the lowest rank in the monastery.

Marinos accepted this, because even though he had to do all the crummy work nobody else wanted to do, it was better than sitting outside all winter. 

Marinos brought the child with him and continued to raise him as his father. When he grew up, he became a monk himself. 

Marinos spent many years in the monastery from there.

One day, the abbot noticed Marinos hadn’t been singing in the choir for a few days, so he sent some others to check on him.

They found him lying dead in his room, of what cause we don’t know.

But the story makes it seem like it was the same abbot the entire time, and he would presumably have been older than Marinos, so our boy couldn’t have been that old. 

Upon preparing his body for burial, they discovered he was trans, and the abbot wept, for he understood how greatly Marinos had suffered for something he was innocent of.

He threw himself at Marinos’ feet, begging for his forgiveness, and heard Marinos’ voice saying he was forgiven because he didn’t know.

Ditto with the innkeeper. 

Then they buried him, and the innkeeper’s daughter confessed her lie while possessed by a demon.

She went to Marinos’ grave and was healed of her possession.

Hallelujah.

Was St. Marinos Transgender? 

Before we go any further, let’s talk about the word “transgender” for a moment. 

Obviously, nobody identified specifically as transgender in the 5^th century CE because the term hadn’t yet been invented.

But at the same time, there are still clearly parallels between modern trans people and people in the past who lived a life incongruent with their expected gender. 

This is where I use historian Susan Stryker’s definition of transgender in a historical sense, quote: 

“I use it… to refer to people who move away from the gender they were assigned at birth, people who cross over (trans-) the boundaries constructed by their culture to define and contain their gender.” 

– Susan Stryker – Transgender History, 1

I get tired of mentioning this sometimes, and you might get tired of hearing it.

But every time I make a video without mentioning it, I get an avalanche of comments telling me they couldn’t be trans because modern interpretations blah blah blah.

Trust me, I’m more tireder than you are. 

Alright, so. 

I’d love to just say YEAH LOOK IT’S A TRANS HISTORY every time something transy crosses my desk.

But that’s not how we do things here. 

We’re interested not just in a surface-level reading of texts, but in an evidence-based understanding of those stories in their historical context.

We don’t start with a conclusion and look for the evidence to support it.

Instead, we look at the evidence and come to the most likely conclusion from there. 

So, with that in mind, let’s analyze the story we just looked at. 

I want to approach this by considering two possible, but mutually exclusive, people. Only one of them can be real.  

First, we have Marina, the woman in disguise. 

If she’s the real one, we might know by finding evidence of her maintaining a feminine persona as part of her inner life. We might recognize her doing womanly things where she can, dropping her disguise here and there, or taking opportunities to embrace a woman’s role when they present themselves. 

Or, failing that, we might find external reasons for her maintaining her disguise. 

On the other hand, we have Marinos, the transgender man. 

If he’s real, we might know by him maintaining his masculine persona, despite what circumstances he might face. 

One of these people is a real person, and the other is a persona the real person used to protect themselves. 

I’m not aware of any studies on the matter, but those of us in the community know that a whole lot of people discovered they were trans during pandemic lock downs.

The silence of the world, the dramatic slowing of pace, the isolation.

It forced many of us, trans and cis alike, to come face to face with some big feelings we’d been running from.

And for the eggs of the world, it gave them the opportunity to explore those feelings in their own time and space, judgment-free. 

Is their transness invalidated because they discovered it through being in quarantine?

Of course not.

I’m certain nobody is seriously claiming the pandemic made them trans.

It was simply a catalyst to get in touch with the feelings they’d been hiding. 

Now look, I know being trans has been politicized by weirdos who have to bring politics into everything, but understanding trans people becomes so much easier when you’re just f***ing normal about it. 

You can understand trans men better when you look at them as a type of man instead of a manly woman. 

You can understand trans women better when you look at us as a type of woman instead of an effeminate man. 

And you can understand a gender transition better when you understand it as simply a type of major life-changing transition like many others, instead of a weird abhorrent thing done by degenerate freaks. 

Because everyone deals with major life-changing transitions. 

A near-death experience, a major chronic illness, losing your job, the death of a loved one, or having your house burn down are all major life-changing transitions. 

Same with moving to a new city, graduating from university, falling in love, having a child, starting a business, or transing your gender. 

Each of these will have major impacts on your life.

So much so that you might think of your life before and after them as distinct phases. 

Some of them can be catalysts for others as well.

I moved to Toronto after I graduated from university, for example.

Others might start a business after losing their job.

Still others might use a near-death experience to spur them to live the life they’ve always wanted. 

Are any of those life-changing moments any less legitimate because they were spurred on by external events?

No, that would be silly. 

And the same is true with Marinos. 

That doesn’t make any sense. So, Marinos didn’t live his life as a man just to be with his father.

That may have played a role in his decision, but it wasn’t only that. 

If we assume Marina is who we’re dealing with, why would she keep up the act? 

Because She Didn’t Know Where To Go?

I suppose you could argue that she just didn’t know what to do after her father died so she just kept living as a monk.

And okay, I guess that’s a possibility. 

But if that were true, why would she suffer outside the monastery for three years?

We know in retrospect that Marinos would eventually be allowed to return, but Marina would have had no reason to believe that would have happened. 

Did she really just have no idea of what to do, so she lived outside?

We aren’t told much about their life before moving to the monastery, but we can at least assume they didn’t live there.

So Marina would have had to know there were other things one could do besides being a monk or sitting outside the gates of a monastery and waiting to die. 

No, this is nonsensical.

I think you could possibly make that argument while Marinos was in the monastery, but not while he was living outside it. 

Because of Devotion to God?

You might also argue that Marina wanted to be really devoted to God, so she kept at it. 

But she could have done so as a woman. 

We met a deaconess in the story of St. Pelagius, for example, which was from roughly the same time and place.

So, there would still have been a role for her in the church.

Because women could be pious too, as it turns out.

It’s not like they had particularly detailed records back then, so nobody would necessarily have known she was a banished monk. 

But again, we know Marinos was kicked out of the monastery.

If we’re dealing with a woman in disguise, she could have just left the Marinos persona behind and moved on with her life. 

Because of Internalized Misogyny?

But that brings up the point that Eugenios made early in the story, quote: “it is through the members of your sex that the devil wages war on the servants of God.”

Could Marina have remained living as a man because she’d been raised to believe women were inherently wicked?

In other words, did Marina transition because of internalized misogyny?

It does sound like Eugenios had some pretty misogynistic ideas in his head.

On top of that, Rome was already a deeply patriarchal and misogynistic society in general, and Catholicism was (and is) too.

So it’s easy to think that Marina would have picked up a lot of misogynistic ideas.

I don’t think that could be in doubt. 

But would that drive someone to live as another gender?

I don’t think so. 

It might lead them to explore the idea, sure.

But that wouldn’t last very long. 

Like, look. I can tell you from personal experience that being the wrong gender sucks.

So can many of you watching this, I’m sure.

Some of us discover we’re trans but don’t transition until later, for all sorts of reasons.

And it sucks.

It sucks to have to be something you know you’re not. 

Internalized misogyny be damned, let’s take stock of the situation.

Let’s assume Marina is a woman disguised as a man because of internalized misogyny. 

She’s not going to be comfortable with this arrangement.

After all, any trans woman can tell you that pretending to be a man when you know you’re a woman is rough. 

She has no family, no home, and everyone she knows has excommunicated her.

She’s been accused of something she knows she didn’t do, so there’s no reason for her to feel guilty and atone for it. 

Then she’s handed a baby to care for, the quintessential woman’s role in ancient Rome. 

All the ingredients are there for her to simply go off and find her way as a woman and a mother. 

Does it really make sense that she’d wait for three years outside the gates of the monastery, suffering and enduring the elements all that time?

And for what?

It would have been reasonable for her to assume she’d never see the inside of the monastery again. 

So, what would make her stay? 

I think the only reasonable explanation here is that Marinos knew himself to be a man, and had built a life for himself as one.

That to reveal himself to be trans would have been even more damaging to his reputation among his peers than to admit to being a philanderer, even if he wasn’t. 

I think he would have rather died as a man than live as a woman.

And he knew he could make a life as a man in the monastery, but that might not have worked anywhere else. 

We don’t have any direct testimony from Marinos, so we can’t know what his thoughts were.

But his actions are consistent with someone whose mind was incongruent with his assigned gender at birth, and who took steps to live his life more in line with what he felt himself to be. 

The simplest, most sensible explanation here is that Marina was a persona he had maintained in his early life, and once he began living as Marinos, he discarded that persona forever. 

So yes, Marinos is transgender. 

Was St. Marinos a Real Person? 

So, Marinos was clearly a trans masculine figure. But was he a real figure, or a fictional one? 

This is a worthwhile question to ask, I think. But it’s not as simple as “it’s true” or “it’s fake”, of course. 

For example, elements of this story veer into the supernatural, and can’t really be proven one way or another.

I mean, to prove that Marinos had the ability to exorcise demons, I’d have to prove that demons exist.

And if I could do that, this would be a very different video. I’d probably either have a Vatican task force show up at my door to exorcise them, or be dragged into infernal torment as my soul is devoured by the demonic hordes of chaos.

And neither of those sounds like a great time. 

So no, I can’t prove demons exist. 

So what about this story can we confirm? 

Well, Qannoubine Monastery was, and is, a real place.

That’s a great start.

Unfortunately, they depict him as Marina, even though we understand Marinos is a much more sensible identity for him.

Oral traditions are important, valid ways to preserve history.

I don’t want anyone to think I’m discounting their value.

They’re especially important for cultures that never developed literacy, or for cultures whose stories have been erased, but not exclusively so. 

I live in Canada, and I know we have a global reputation for being cool, but we’re a colonial project built on the genocide of the Indigenous peoples who lived here for millennia before Europeans showed up.

It was, and is, so bad that the system of Apartheid in South Africa was based in large part on Canada’s treatment of Indigenous peoples.

And that very system – the ones Canadians so passionately criticized while it existed in another country – still exists today. 

That’s so typically Canadian, too.

So many of us are happy to criticize other countries, but have so little understanding of what happens within our own borders.

We criticize the Americans for their excesses, and rightfully so, but we turn around and support politicians that are just as nakedly corrupt, over and over again.

If Donald Trump was Canadian, I have no doubt we’d have elected him as well. 

It’s frustrating to live in this country sometimes.

Anyway, those Indigenous cultures – the hundreds of different First Nations cultures, as well as Inuit and Métis – preserved their histories through oral tradition.

But for centuries, the discipline of history has devalued oral traditions in favour of the written word. 

Here in Canada, part of the process of decolonizing Canadian history has been to work to value Indigenous oral traditions as historical sources in their own right.

As a Sicilian-Canadian, I benefit from the legacy of colonialism that we continue to wrestle with in this country.

And as someone who does her best to be aware of prejudice and discrimination – you might even call me woke – I certainly don’t want to reproduce old-fashioned colonial prejudices. 

I like vintage style, not vintage values. 

So oral tradition has an important place in the analysis of history.

In fact, some of the oldest written stories we have very clearly started as oral traditions.

This includes the Iliad, the Odyssey, and the Epic of Gilgamesh.

Even parts of the Bible come from oral traditions. 

For example, the Gospel of Luke begins thusly:

Many have undertaken to draw up an account of the things that have been fulfilled among us, just as they were handed down to us by those who from the first were eyewitnesses and servants of the word. With this in mind, since I myself have carefully investigated everything from the beginning, I too decided to write an orderly account for you, most excellent Theophilus, so that you may know the certainty of the things you have been taught.

– Luke 1-4 (NIV)

He’s telling us he went around and asked a bunch of people what happened, then compiled it into something he wrote down.

It was likely written more than 50 years after Christ was likely crucified, so how else could we understand this text other than a written account of an oral tradition? 

But it’s important to recognize the difference between oral traditions and written history.

Just like written history, archaeology, mythology, and more, they have their benefits and limitations in helping us understand the past. 

For example, oral histories can tell us about events that happened, but they don’t generally give us a chronology.

They’re also not always an accurate portrayal of a single person’s life, but rather an amalgamation of multiple lives. 

Anyway, it’s now believed that most of what Charrière says he did was probably not true.

Instead, it’s an amalgamation of the stories and deeds of various prisoners on the island. 

Does that mean it’s worthless from a historical perspective?

Absolutely not.

But it does mean its value from a historical perspective needs to be understood and interpreted differently.

Anyway, all that is to say that oral tradition is an important part of the historical process. 

So, how can we interpret the oral history of the monks at Qannoubine Monastery that Marinos was one of them? 

I think it makes sense to simply take it at face value. 

Yes, we’re told Marinos came from a bunch of other places.

But those sources come from much later, and they don’t provide much in the way of evidence.

The oral history, I think, is the most reliable one in this case. 

But we also have Marinos’ mummified body. 

After his death, we’re told that his body and relics were sent to Venice, except for his left arm for some reason, which they kept at Qannoubine.

His mummified remains were then put on display at Santa Maria Formosa church.

They returned to Lebanon for a little while in 2018, but as of 2024, I’m told they’re back in Venice. Like, it’s a relic that exists.

We still have it.

You can go visit it if you want. 

Is this enough to believe there was a historical Marinos, or is this all simply a pious fiction designed to teach morality? 

Historian Hippolyte Delehaye seems to think it’s the latter. 

In his 1907 work “The Legends of the Saints”, he says, quote: 

The first question that should be addressed to an author the value of whose work one wishes to estimate, concerns the class of literature that he professes to produce, for it would be manifestly unjust to condemn, on the ground of historical inaccuracy, one whose only aim was to write a work of fiction. Certain hagiographic documents are clearly of this nature, they are parables or tales designed to bring home some religious truth or some moral principle. (62)

A hagiography, by the way, is a biography of the life of a saint.

Delehaye clearly believes some saints’ lives are not meant to be histories in the first place.

And he’s right there.

Some of them are clearly fictitious, and others just can’t be confirmed one way or another.

So, what leads him to believe Marinos’s story is false? 

He points out how similar it is to the lives of other saints.

And it is true that there are other trans masculine saints who live as monks.

Delehaye lists off a bunch of them, which gives me a nice list of future topics for this channel.

But does it make sense to assume the story of Marinos is fiction just because similar themes show up in other places? 

I don’t think so. 

Because these stories are different.

The only real common thread they have is being trans, living as a monk, and their transness being discovered after they die. 

Pelagius was a hermit, and Marinos lived in a community. Pelagius was never accused of fathering a child. He was never kicked out of a monastery and later readmitted.

There are so many differences here. 

He took the name Smaragdus, which means emerald, but wow what an ugly word for a beautiful thing. Latin is fun like that.

Anyway, his father grieved for the loss of his only daughter and visited the abbey, where Smaragdus comforted him.

Then shortly before he died, he revealed to his father who he was, and after his son’s death his father joined the monastery too and lived in Smaragdus’ cell. 

That does have some echoes, but still, it’s a very different story. 

However, if you view a gender transition as a literary device as opposed to, you know, just a thing people do sometimes, you might see this as derivative. 

I transitioned for lore reasons myself, but I don’t think that’s true of most trans people. After all, most trans people aren’t YouTubers. 

Okay, some trans people aren’t YouTubers. 

Okay, a few aren’t. 

*sigh* there has to be at least one of you who isn’t a video essayist… 

I don’t think it makes sense to discard all of these just because they have common elements.

It may be true, though, that some of these stories are fictitious, have fictitious elements, or are derivative of earlier stories.

But that doesn’t mean we should throw all of these stories out. 

To me, I’ve seen no reason to believe the story of Marinos is a pious fiction.

As much as is possible to believe a story written by an anonymous author from 1500+ years ago, it seems to me as though the life of Marinos is a true story, or at least based on a true story that may have been a little exaggerated over time. 

What Can This Story Tell Us?

Even if Marinos was real, there’s no reason to believe his story was written by him. The Marinos chronicler, whoever they were, was clearly a Christian themselves, and they make the moral of the story pretty clear at the end, quote:

Let us then, beloved, zealously emulate the blessed [Marinos] and [his] patient endurance, so that on the day of judgment we may find mercy from our Lord Jesus Christ, to Whom belongs glory and dominion to the ages of ages. Amen. (21)

In this work, his enduring of his unjust punishment is framed as a virtue, even if the punishment itself is not. We, viewing this story after the fact, understand that he didn’t deserve what he endured. But he endured it anyway, with patient dignity and grace. 

From a Christian perspective, that’s the moral of the story. But what can we take from this as modern trans people? 

I think it might be the same thing. 

Friends, you and I both know things are rough right now. We, as a community, are being persecuted by the Epstein class and their lapdog propagandists.

We’re being accused of the most horrible things imaginable, by the very same people who are doing those things themselves. And in many cases, they’re rolling back our rights in the name of Jesus. 

It’s understandable, then, for queer and trans folks and our allies to hold a distaste for – even a hatred of – Christianity.

That shows in the numbers I get from the Christian-centred videos I make. As I sit here writing this, I’m fully expecting this video to be a dud, though I hope to be proven wrong. 

So, why am I making it? 

A few reasons. 

First off, Marinos is clearly a trans masculine figure. And even though my trans masculine videos don’t do the numbers as well, I’m committed to telling stories of trans history that represent ALL our community. Trans feminine stuff is awesome, and I obviously relate more to it personally. But our trans brothers deserve their flowers too. 

But also, I find this stuff to be healing, in a way. 

I know a lot of us in queer town have a pretty strong negative response to anything related to Christianity, but that’s not the case for me. My feelings are a little more complicated. 

That might have something to do with me not being an American, and far right Christian mania not having as much of an influence on our politics here in Canada. 

Yet. 

Can I get personal with you for a moment? I want to tell you about my mom. 

She and I have a pretty close relationship. She’s always been in my corner. I get a lot of my best traits from her, I think. My drive, my entrepreneurial spirit, my style, my resilience, my showwomanship… a lot of it comes from her. I don’t always treat her as well as I should, but I do my best, because she deserves my best. 

She’s always been there for me, and while intellectually I know I’ll probably outlive her, I don’t think one can ever emotionally prepare for losing a parent. 

Last year, my mom had a cancer scare. Fortunately, they caught it early enough that she wasn’t going to need chemo or radiation, but she was going to need surgery, and soon. They found it in late September, and scheduled her surgery for Halloween. 

I spent all of October numb. 

I know I did things. I know I worked. I know I went to band practice. I know I wrote. I know I did voice sessions with my clients. But I don’t remember any of it. It was as though I was on autopilot, simply existing as I waited for Halloween. 

But as my anxiety grew, I needed somewhere to channel it, and so did my mom. 

She was raised Roman Catholic, and so was I. So when she told me she wanted to go to church and asked me to come with her, I was conflicted. 

I’d not been to a Catholic church since my Nonna passed away back in 2015, and even then, it was just for the funeral. But I’d considered myself an atheist for most of my adult life, and the many abuses by the Catholic Church over the millennia are well documented. 

And really, I had no way of knowing how people would react to my presence. I don’t know how well I pass, and honestly it’s not really something I think about much. I want to be read as a woman, but I don’t care if people clock me as trans, because I am trans. I know I have this voice, which helps quite a bit, but you don’t tend to talk during mass. What sort of reactions would I get? 

But family is important, and I wanted to be there for my mom. Her prognosis was good, but surgery is always risky and frightening. How awful would I feel if I refused to go with her, and something happened? 

So, I went to church with my mom. And while I was there, I started praying. 

I went every Sunday for quite a while, and even started flirting with the idea of re-adopting a Christian identity for myself. 

But the more the world shifts in a darker, more violent direction, the more trouble I have believing in a higher power who loves us and wants what’s best for us. 

I think of Henry Kissinger. 

And look, if you don’t know, he was one of the worst people of the 20th century. I know that’s a high bar to clear, but as far as I’m concerned, he deserves to be spoken of with the same disdain as Adolf Hitler. 

Think of the greatest horrors of the second half of the 20^th century. 

The carpet bombing of Vietnam and Cambodia. 

The Bengali genocide in Bangladesh. 

The Indonesian invasion and occupation of East Timor. 

Operation Condor, which overthrew democratically elected governments in South America in favour of right wing dictators like Augusto Pinochet. 

The Dirty War in Argentina. 

The list goes on, and Kissinger had a hand in all of them. 

I’m not exaggerating when I say that in terms of people who’ve walked this Earth at the same time I have, he’s the evilest. He’s got some heavy competition, I know, but it’s true. 

And he died at 100 years old, in a comfortable bed, surrounded by his loved ones. 

That’s not fucking fair, and it pushes me away from believing in any higher power. If God truly is all-powerful, all-knowing, and all-loving, how could he allow someone who caused millions of people to die horrible, agonizing deaths to live a long, peaceful, joyous, and prosperous life? 

On another note, why would an all-powerful, all-knowing God allow his message to be so wildly perverted? If you look at the words attributed to Christ in the Bible, it’s clear that his main message is one of love. But as we all know, the quickest and easiest path to wealth if you have no morals is to pick on a minority in the name of Jesus. 

All that makes it really difficult for me to believe. 

On the other hand, it makes me hope that hell is real. Because maybe there is justice in the universe. Maybe things do make sense in the end. Maybe the people who make the ruination of lives their life’s work will get what they deserve. Maybe there really is a robot devil who sings musical numbers to torment the souls of the damned. 

So, do I believe in God? I don’t know. 

And I’m not sure I’ll ever have an answer to that question. 

Do you believe in God? That’s your business. But regardless of our spiritual beliefs, or lack thereof, we can still draw an important moral from the life of Marinos. 

He lived a quiet but good life, devoted to his God, to healing, and to helping others. And he was falsely accused of doing something terrible by someone who knew the accusation wasn’t true, but who wanted to use it to cover up the truth of her own indiscretions. 

As a result, he endured intense hardship and suffering for years. It wasn’t right. He shouldn’t have had to endure what he did. But Marinos did endure, with dignity and grace. And maybe that’s something we can consider as modern trans people. 

As we look back at Marinos’ story, we see a trans man who endured a punishment based on a lie. So in a way, the hardship we ourselves endure today, based on lies, is simply the latest chapter in the millennia-long book of transgender history.  

I’m not saying we shouldn’t fight. 

Fight like hell. 

Don’t let the story of Marinos deradicalize you. 

Instead, let it encourage you. 

Let it drive you forward. 

Let it push you to work toward the end of our oppression and exploitation. 

Let it push you to dream of a future where we’re able to exist without labouring under the heavy burden of false accusations. 

To paraphrase the late, great Ursula K. Le Guin:

We live [in a hateful world]. Its power seems inescapable. So did the divine right of kings. Any human power can be resisted and changed by human beings. Resistance and change often begin in art, and very often in our art, the art of words.

So, continue your work, my friends. Continue your art. Continue to dream. Continue to fight, to live, to express your joy. 

Continue toward a future we may at times struggle to see. 

Because a better world is possible. 

And that better world will include us. 

Because we have always existed. 

And so long as humanity continues to endure, so too shall we. 

Ancient Sources

►“The Holy Bible: New Revised Standard Version, Updated Edition”. Translated by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America, 2021. 
►“The Life of St. Mary/Marinos”. Translated by Nicholas Constas. Byzantine Saints’ Lives in Translation, Volume I: Holy Women of Byzantium. Edited by Alice-Mary Talbot. Washington, Dumbarton Oaks, 1996. 
►Plutarch. “Lives, Volume V: Agesilaus and Pompey. Pelopidas and Marcellus”. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library 87. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1917. 

Modern Sources

►“Antioch Revealed: Treasures from an ancient city dazzle in a new exhibit”. Harvard Magazine, 1 November 2000. Accessed 11 March 2026.
►Boatwright, Mary T, Daniel J. Gargola, and Richard J.A. Talbert. “The Romans: From Village to Empire”. Toronto, Oxford University Press, 2004. 
►Bone, Stuart. “A Day among the Ruins of the Fifth Century Churches near Antioch.” Bulletin of the American Schools of Oriental Research, no. 22, 1926, pp. 4–10. JSTOR. Accessed 13 Mar. 2026.
►Bychowski, M. W. “The Authentic Lives of Transgender Saints: Imago Dei and Imitatio Christi in the Life of St Marinos the Monk.” Trans and Genderqueer Subjects in Medieval Hagiography, edited by Alicia Spencer-Hall and Blake Gutt, Amsterdam University Press, 2021, pp. 245–66. JSTOR. Accessed 9 Mar. 2026.
►Chaaya, Anis. “Syriac Cult Places in Wadi Qadisha in Lebanon”. Actes Du Symposium MELAMMU Assyrian and Babylonian Intellectual Heritage, 2002.
►Clack, Julie. “Uncovering Antioch”. Princeton University News, 1 November 2018. Accessed 12 March 2026.
►De Giorgi, Andrea U. “Ancient Antioch from the Seleucid Era to the Islamic Conquest”. Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 2016.
►Delehaye, Hippolyte. “The Legends of the Saints: An Introduction to Hagiography”. London, Longmans, Green, and Co, 1907.
►Downey, Glanville. “The Size of the Population of Antioch.” Transactions and Proceedings of the American Philological Association, vol. 89, 1958, pp. 84–91. JSTOR. Accessed 11 Mar. 2026.
►Dunbabin, Katherine M. “Mosaics of the Greek and Roman World”. New York, Cambridge University Press, 1999.
►Hanfmann, George M. A. “Socrates and Christ.” Harvard Studies in Classical Philology, vol. 60, 1951, pp. 205–33. JSTOR. Accessed 13 Mar. 2026.
►Hourani, Guita G. “The Vita of Saint Marina in the Maronite Tradition”. Sainte Marina Moniale Deguisee En Habit De Moine Dans La Tradition Maronite. Patrimonie Syriaque 6 (2013): 17-36.
►Kmeid, Fadi. “The Maronites: Their Sacred Sites”. Translated by Najwa Nasr. Maronite Academy 2013 Course Curriculum, 2013. Accessed 22 March 2026.
►Morton, H. V. “In the Steps of St. Paul”. London, Rich & Cowan Ltd, 1936.
►Ogden, Amy V. “The Centrality of Margins: Medieval French Genders and Genres Reconfigured.” French Forum, vol. 30, no. 1, 2005, pp. 1–23. JSTOR. Accessed 24 Mar. 2026.
►Richard, Marcel. “La Vie Ancienne de Sainte Marie surnommée Marinos”. Corona Gratiarum (1975): 83-115. Accessed 9 March 2026.
►“Saint Marina of Bithynia”. CatholicSaints.Info. 30 September 2022. Accessed 9 March 2026. 
►Scalera, G. “Earthquakes, phase changes, fold belts: from Apennines to a global perspective”. Geodinamica e struttura dell’interno della Terra 3.3 (2010):25-44.
►Swartz, Willis G. “The Early Church Persecution of Paganism and Heresy.” Social Science, vol. 2, no. 2, 1927, pp. 135–42. JSTOR. Accessed 12 Mar. 2026.
►UNESCO. “Ouadi Qadisha (the Holy Valley) and the Forest of the Cedars of God (Horsh Arz el-Rab)”. UNESCO World Heritage Convention List, 1998.
►Wade, Woo. “Rome’s Conversion to Christianity and its Lasting Legacy”. Rhodes College, Auben Gray Burkhart Coin Collection Blog. 2023. Accessed 12 March 2026.

Images Used:

All images created by Sophie Edwards, public domain, or Fair Use, except:

►Maronite cathedral of St. George by Lebnen18 CC3.0
►Roman Syria by Milenioscuro CC4.0
►Roman Road to Antioch by Bernard Gagnon CC3.0
►Antioch theatre and Roman Bath at Antioch by dosseman CC4.0
►Mosaic border by Carole Raddato CC2.0
►Tiger mosaic by Peter E CC2 .0
►Geometric mosaic with woman face by Mary Harrsch CC2.0
►Orpheus mosaic and skeleton mosaic by Dosseman CC4.0
►Wadi Qadisha by Evan Williams CC4.0
►L’Îsle du Diable vue depuis l’Île Royale by Don-vip CC4.0
►Photos of the mummified Marinos copyright Viktor Athelstan, used with permission