Saint Legislation

Saint Legislation refers to the laws passed down on saints and other followers of Athena that operate in her Sanctuary.

Female saints
Since the ancient Greek era, being a saint was prohibited to any woman other than Athena herself, and as such, when a woman decides to become a saint, she renounces her gender and covers her feminine face with a mask. Traditionally, it is considered a terrible humiliation for a female saint to be seen without her mask, and if a man sees her face, her only two options are to kill or to love whoever did so.

In the Toei Animation series, the saints were said to originally be all male and that no woman had any right to be a saint either with or without a mask, but that the change of times eventually led to the addition of females to the ranks of Sanctuary.

There have been examples of saints who renounced that tradition, such as Aquila Yuna and Crane Yuzuriha (who originally abandoned the mask only in the presence of Unicorn Yato and Pegasus Tenma, but eventually stopped wearing it altogether). Saintias are a special group of elite female saints that serve directly under Athena, and are exempt from wearing the mask.