Holy Martyr Neophytus

Life

Neophytus was a native of Nicaea. While still a child he worked great miracles by God's grace. He brought forth water from stone, resurrected his dead mother. Led by a white dove to Mount Olympus where he drove a lion out of a cave and settled inside. Martyred for Christ in his fifteenth year, in the time of Emperor Diocletian, in Nicaea. He would not renounce Christ in any way. After beating and imprisonment he was thrown into fire, but God preserved him alive. Then they placed him before a hungry lion, but the lion fawned around Neophytus. The saint recognized in that lion the very same one in whose cave he had practiced asceticism, so he petted it and ordered it to go again to its cave. Then they pierced Neophytus with a spear and his soul departed to the Lord's mansions.