My sister, Kim Marshall, is a chef at a restaurant in Seattle called, Macrina and was wondering more about the background of the name. The following is an email correspondance.

Anyway, thanks for helping me out with my search.
Macrina - Greek goddess of community or patron saint - perhaps both "Feast of Macrina" is on July 19th I believe. I need to know how the feast was celebrated, how it's celebrated now, etc. Basically, what's going to be on my menu this July 19th, you know?

Here is how these things get related. Goddesses started out being everything to a particular people... For instance, like Athena. A tribe called themselves Athenians because they worshipped her as the world, the universe and saw in their wives and mothers this all-powerful goddess … they eventually settled down and called their city … you got it, Athens. But wait, the story gets better.

Life (which is actually the name of another goddess that we appropriated) is an interesting creature. She gives you life, she nourishes and sustains you, and then for some whim, she kills you. Fickled, she has three faces. In stories they label her, the Virgin, the Mother, and the Crone (or Hag or more recently, the Witch). You might remember these three in the story of Snow White, for there she was. The Virgin (Snow White), the Mother (the Queen), and the Crone (the Queen in disguise). Don't worry that in this story the three aspects were played by two different characters … this is just poetic liberty. If you think that the characters in that story are just three aspects of yourself, it gets even more confusing, so don't go there.

Anyway, one tribe/city conquers another, and they decide to hook up, swap sons for sons-in-law and daughters for daughters-in-law, and oh... what are we going to do about our two goddesses, for you see, the other city thinks that their goddess is everything as well, and while it does make good political sense not to dis another's goddess, it makes even better physical sense not to make Her angry … for that land you just conquered, is her land, and she might not like to very much and curse you with a plague of lobsters in your bed if say something mean or derogatory about her.

So, you take your best story, and their best story and put them together really nice like. Your goddess can be the Virgin, and their goddess can by the Mother, and hey, I got an idea, let's conquer the city of Hecate and get ourselves an Old Woman. Now the more cities and tribes you conquer, the more merging and blending you have to do, but no problem, there are so many stories that tell the same Story that it works. However, your original goddess becomes a little more specialized … she was always pretty intelligent and just … now, she's the Goddess of Justice and Knowledge.

Eventually those damn sheep herders in the desert, show up, conquer your city and start flaunting this "god" … As if a man could stand up to a woman. But maybe we can merge them in. Before they just showed up when the goddess took a lover, but now they actually want to stay. What are we going to do now. Let's merge them in too … but no, Zeus can't be the "father" of Athena … she has no father! Ok, compromise … she sprang from his head in full armor. Hmm.... I like that. I can live with that. She is like Thought itself. We'll take it.

Of course, by the time those pesky Christians showed up, every girl was named after one of these goddesses. Still are. How many Dianes and Dianas do you know (that was Athena's Romanized name). Now some of these girls were converting to Christianity. But like their name-sakes, they began to do miracles just like the original goddess used to. Perhaps the stories of these girls after their death began to take on legendary status when people started merging, St. Macrina and Goddess Macrina. No big deal. The stories are good, and the stories are the most important. Of course, Saint needed to have a "Feast Day" or a "Holy Day" (did someone say holiday?) and you might as well use the same day since it is available.

Whew … that was fun. Now, where were we … oh yeah, Macrina. You are right in thinking that they are similar as they are same in a literary form. The ancients didn't care too much for or about keeping the details tidy as long as the story was kept interesting. So, if you want to do more of a Christian thing … call it St. Macrina. Strangely enough, it is probably more acceptable to call it after the original Goddess, since people won't be tempted to call it religion. You know, like how everyone accepts Odin when he is dressed up in red and white fur and comes down the chimney to bless the family with presents. In fact, if we just got rid of that "Santa" prefix, then he might just start dropping presents off at the Jewish households too … because everyone knows, "Nick" sure makes a great holiday.

I mean, Macrina's brother was named, Basil, so you definitely need to add a bit of that herb to everything you make. No one can really call you wrong.

I got to get some work done, but I will look more for you, since there seems to be a lot more online resources about St. Macrina than about the Greek Goddess (must be a spelling difference). So, I'll look more later.