Life in Antioch
Martha was a native of Antioch and lived during the sixth century. From her early years she yearned for the monastic life, but her parents persuaded her to marry. According to the tradition recorded in her life, she seriously considered withdrawing from the world when her betrothal was arranged, until Saint John the Forerunner, whom she particularly venerated and who frequently appeared to her in visions, counseled her to fulfill her parents' wishes and enter into marriage. Her husband, named in the Orthodox account as John, soon died, and Martha devoted herself thereafter to raising their son.
That son became Saint Symeon Stylites the Younger, the renowned ascetic of the Wonderful Mountain near Antioch (commemorated May 24). The sources relate that Martha continued to guide him spiritually, counseling him against self-exaltation and pride even as he rose to fame as a stylite.
Prayer and Charity
Martha is remembered for a disciplined life of prayer and almsgiving carried on within the ordinary circumstances of a household. She kept the habit of rising at midnight for prayer every night, offering her prayers, as the Orthodox account describes, with heartfelt warmth and tears, and she was constant in attending church. Her conduct was reserved: she is said never to have used frivolous speech or shown anger.
Her charity was wide-ranging. She fed and clothed the needy, visited the poor, the orphaned, and convalescents, and attended the sick. She buried the dead, and for those preparing to receive holy Baptism she made the baptismal garments with her own hands.
Foreknowledge of Death
In the year before her death, according to her life, Martha saw a company of angels bearing candles in their hands and learned from them the time of her coming death. The vision is said to have moved her to still greater devotion in prayer and good works. She also received visions of Paradise and of the heavenly habitations prepared for the righteous. Her death, in the year 551, was peaceful, and her body was buried on the Wonderful Mountain, at the place of her son's ascetic labors.
Posthumous Veneration
After her death Martha was said to have appeared on a number of occasions, both to instruct the faithful and to heal the sick. The tradition preserves one such account concerning the abbot of the monastery her son had founded: when the abbot, who had placed a votive candle on Martha's grave, later fell ill, she appeared to him and explained that the candle was an entreaty for her intercessions.
