Saint Nicetas the Confessor

Life

Born in Bithynia, in the city of Caesarea. His father Philaretus, having lost his wife, became a monk, and Nicetas remained with his grandmother, his father's mother. When he had grown up and completed all his studies he went to the Monastery of Medikion, where the Abbot Nicephorus tonsured him as a monk, and after seven years of labor and ascetic struggles Patriarch Tarasius ordained him as a hieromonk. After the death of Nicephorus and Nicetas's faithful friend Athanasius, the brotherhood chose Nicetas, against his own will, as Abbot. Saint Nicetas was a radiant example of life and ascetic labor for his brethren through a long series of years. But when Leo V the Armenian came to the throne, after the pious Irene and the right-believing emperors Nicephorus and Michael, the iconoclast heresy flared up again. The emperor deposed Patriarch Nicephorus and sent him into exile, and in his place elevated a certain heretic Theodotus Cassiteras, a man of impure life. Nicetas too was imprisoned and tortured, but he was not shaken in his Orthodoxy. He was led from prison to prison, and tortured by hunger and thirst, cold and heat, and by mockery. But he would not allow himself to be shaken. A certain Nicholas especially tormented him with ridicule and mockery. But one night Nicholas's dead father appeared to him in a dream and reproachfully said to him: "Depart from the servant of God!" And from that hour Nicholas repented and not only ceased tormenting the saint but also dissuaded others from tormenting him. When Leo the Armenian perished by an evil death, the right-believing emperor Michael Balbus assumed the throne and freed all the Orthodox sufferers. Nicetas withdrew to a solitary place near Constantinople, where in prayer and thanksgiving to God for all things he spent his last days of earthly life. He wrought many miracles through prayer during his lifetime. And when he died, they transferred his body to his monastery. And during that procession many of the sick touched his body and were healed. His relics were laid beside the tomb of his spiritual father Nicephorus and his friend Athanasius. This great hierarch reposed in the year 824.

From the Hymn of Praise

### SAINT NICETAS THE CONFESSOR"I bear the wounds of the Lord upon my bodyAnd only in the Cross of the Lord do I glory!"Thus spoke Paul, the chosen apostle,Whom hosts of the penitent followed,