00:01Imagine Antioch, the opulent city, vibrant with life and pleasure.
00:06That's where Pelagie shone, a famous actress of breathtaking beauty, whose name was
00:12on everyone's lips.
00:14She was sometimes called Marguerite, so precious did she seem; she lived in opulence, her finery was legendary, and her
00:22life, a constant parade of worldly splendors.
00:26She was the very symbol of fleeting success and worldly pleasures.
00:30But one day, fate intervened.
00:33As she parades insolently before an assembly of bishops, the gaze of the old Bishop Nonus pierces her, no
00:40No judgment, but deep compassion.
00:44He sees beyond the outward brilliance, the emptiness and distress of a soul.
00:50Her prayer and her oath on divine judgment and mercy deeply move Pelagia.
00:56-even.
00:57It's a shock, a flash of truth that shatters his shell.
01:03Pelagia, that star of the Antioch scenes, falls to her knees.
01:07She repents, confesses her sins with abundant tears and asks for baptism.
01:13In a radical gesture, she distributed all her possessions to the poor, renouncing her fortune, her glory, her
01:21identify.
01:22She cuts her hair, disguises herself as a man, and leaves Antioch forever.
01:28Under the name Pelagia, she fled to Jerusalem, then to the Mount of Olives, where she embraced a
01:35life of a hermit, of penance and prayer.
01:39No one suspects her past, nor her gender.
01:43She lives in total austerity, far from the world she had once cherished so much.
01:48Only Deacon Jacques discovers her by chance, believing her to be a pious eunuch.
01:54It was only after his death that the truth came out.
01:57Pelagius was a woman, the famous Pelagia of Antioch.
02:02Her story is one of a sudden conversion, a radical life change, driven by unconditional divine love.
02:10It reminds us that no matter our past, our mistakes, our falls, God's mercy is infinite.
02:19Pelagie embodies the power of repentance, the capacity of the human soul to transform itself completely and to find the
02:26holiness even after a life of sin.
02:29His life is a hymn to hope, a testimony that no one is too far from God to be
02:35saved.
02:36We did it on August 10th.
02:38We did it on August 10th.
