Barnabas and Hilarion

The Venerable Saints Barnabas and Hilarion, wonderworkers, are two saints venerated above all in Cyprus, where their relics lie at Peristerona. Very little is known of their lives. According to the synaxarion they came from Cappadocia and lived in the time of Emperor Theodosius II the Younger, in the fifth century. They were of noble families and served in the emperor's army, where they were noted for stature, courage and conduct. The Cypriot chroniclers Leontios Machairas and Kyprianos, however, count them among the three hundred "Alamanni" who came to Cyprus after the Second Crusade, a view that does not agree with the synaxarion and the tradition.

Leaving the glory of the army, they went into the desert, where they gave themselves to prayer, the reading of Scripture, ascetic struggle and virtue. Miracles took place there, and they were physicians to the sick and consolation to the sorrowing. According to their testament, the coffins with their bodies were cast into the sea and reached the shore of Cyprus at a place called Stomation, on the beach of Morphou where the river Serrachis flows.

A devout man of Soloi named Leontios saw them in a dream and was told to take his "pair" and go to Stomation. He took two oxen and found a wooden chest, but could not move it. The next night the saints told him that it was not oxen but his two sons who were to take the chest. After prayer, Leontios and his two children lifted the chest and carried it to Peristerona, where many healings began: the blind saw, the possessed were delivered, the paralysed walked. In their honour a large five-⁠domed, three-⁠aisled basilica was built at Peristerona around 1100, on the site of an early Christian basilica; the saints' tombs are in the narthex. Their service was composed by Ch. Papadopoulos and printed at Nicosia in 1938. They are commemorated on 21 October, by the Greek calendar (new style).