St. Mary of Egypt — the repentant harlot who spent forty-seven years in the desert beyond the Jordan, becoming one of the greatest ascetics in all of Christian history — is depicted here in a modern Russian icon. Her life, read aloud in Orthodox churches on the Fifth Thursday of Great Lent, stands as an inexhaustible testimony to the power of repentance and the boundlessness of God's mercy. An Orthodox mounted icon of St. Mary of Egypt from Damascene Gallery.