St. Mary Magdalene

A woman of Magdala in Galilee out of whom Christ cast seven demons, who followed Him and provided for Him, stood at the cross when the disciples had fled, came to the tomb with myrrh before dawn, and was the first to see Him risen, sent by Him to tell the Apostles. The Church calls her Equal-to-the-Apostles. The Orthodox tradition has never made her the sinful woman of Luke 7: that identification comes from a sermon of Pope Gregory the Great in 591, and it is the reason the West painted her as a penitent for a thousand years. The East kept her as a witness. By tradition she preached in Rome and came before Tiberius with a red egg, the reason for the eggs of Pascha, and died at Ephesus. Feast: July 22.