Marinos the monk
or Saint Marina of Bithynia
Marinos or Marina lived, according to tradition, in the fifth or sixth century in Bithynia, a region in what is now northwestern Turkey. According to legend, Marinos was assigned female at birth, but entered a monastery as a man and lived there as a monk.
The monastic habit concealed the body, and in a celibate setting physical differences appeared to lose their significance. Marinos was later expelled from the monastery after being falsely accused of having impregnated a girl. Even so, Marinos held on to his male identity, raised the child as a father and eventually returned to the monastery with him. His female anatomy was discovered only after his death.
The incorrupt body of Saint Marina of Bithynia in the church of Santa Maria Formosa, Venice. Above it, a depiction of Saint Marina with the child she raised.