The discipline of folly
Isidora's asceticism took the form later called foolishness for Christ: she conducted herself as though mad or possessed, so that her genuine virtue would be hidden behind apparent disgrace. The sources connect this path to the Apostle Paul's words that one should become a fool in order to become truly wise (cf. 1 Corinthians 3:18).
She worked in the kitchen and took on the most menial and unpleasant duties of the house, cleaning away every impurity. Accounts relate that she never sat at the common table or took ordinary bread, contenting herself with scraps and the leavings of the cooking vessels. For this she was known by a nickname marking her as the lowest servant of the community.
Contempt and hidden virtue
The other sisters, of whom there were said to be some four hundred, regarded Isidora as insane or possessed and treated her with open scorn; she was mocked, shunned at table, and at times even struck. Throughout this she remained patient and meek, neither retaliating nor complaining.
Her concealment held until an angel appeared to the hermit Pitirim, telling him that a woman more pleasing to God than himself was to be found at the monastery, marked by a rag worn on her head. When the sisters were assembled and Isidora was finally brought forward, Pitirim recognized her and bowed before her, asking her blessing. The community, confronted with how they had treated her, sought her forgiveness.
Legacy
Unable to bear the reverence now shown her, Isidora quietly left the monastery a few days later, and nothing certain is recorded of her afterward. She is commemorated in the East on May 10, and in the Western calendar on May 1.
Her account is preserved in the Lausiac History (Historia Lausiaca), composed about 419 to 420 by Palladius of Galatia, in the chapter on the nun who feigned madness. As one of the earliest examples of the holy fool, and the first woman remembered in that tradition, she became a model for the later Orthodox veneration of fools for Christ.
