In Eastern Orthodoxy and Catholicism, Saint Geneviève (Nanterre near Paris, c. 419/422 - Paris 512) is the patron of Paris. Her feast is kept on January 3. Life Though there is a "vita" that purports to be written by a contemporary, Geneviève's history cannot be separated from her hagiography, which describes her as a peasant girl of Nanterre. One day Saint Germain of Auxerre came to Nanterre, and Genevieve confided in him that she wanted to live only for God. He encouraged her in her pursuit, and, at the age of fifteen, Genevieve became a nun. On the deaths of her parents, she went to live with her godmother Lutetia in Paris ("Lutetia", being the former name of the city of Paris, has a symbolic weight), where she became admired for the extremes of her piety and her devotion to works of charity, which included her severe corporal austerities, and a vegetarian diet which allowed her to sup but twice per week. "These mortificat