Melania the Elder

Who was Melania the Elder?

Saint Melania the Elder or Maior was a Desert Mother who was an influential figure in the Christian ascetic movement that sprang up in the generation after the Emperor Constantine made Christianity a legal religion of the Roman Empire. She was a contemporary of, and well known to, Abba Macarius and other Desert Fathers in Egypt, Saint Jerome, Saint Augustine of Hippo, Saint Paulinus of Nola, and Evagrius of Pontus, and she founded a religious community on the Mount of Olives in Jerusalem.

Of women in the early history of the church, few records are found. However, there are some facts known about one such leader, "Melania the Elder", one of the wealthiest citizens of the empire, who was born in Spain, married at fourteen, and lived with her husband Valerius Maximus Basilius in the suburbs of Rome. She lost her husband and two out of three sons to disease when she was twenty-two. She became a Christian in Rome and set off to Alexandria to meet up with other Christian ascetics. – with her wealthy Roman relatives opposing her bitterly.