Venerable Paraskeva of Serbia (XI)

The Venerable Paraskeva of Serbia was born in a village near Constantinople into a devout Bulgarian family. Once, during a service, the girl’s heart was moved by the words of the Gospel: “If any man will come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24). After this she began to distribute her property to the poor. After the death of her parents the blessed one withdrew from the vanity of the world, was tonsured a nun, and laboured in the desert of the Jordan until deep old age. Two years before her death the holy mother, at an angel’s direction, returned to her homeland and settled by the church of the Holy Apostles, where she reposed in peace in the first half of the eleventh century (in 1238 or 1221).