Calandion

Saint Calandion was an ascetic of Cyprus, venerated at Pano Arodes in the province of Paphos, where the only church in the world dedicated to him is found. The church, built in the eighteenth century, is the central church of the village.

According to the Cypriot chronicler Leontios Machairas (fifteenth century), he is one of the "three hundred" Alamanni saints who came to Cyprus in the seventh century, when the Saracens conquered Palestine and Syria, then great centres of monasticism. Calandion had been a bishop at Antioch and, left without a flock, crossed to Cyprus with the saints Agapios and Barlaam, resolved to live as hermits. The chronicler says that the three struggled in the village of Arodes in Paphos. After their death they were shown to be saints by the miracles they worked, and the faithful built a church in their honour.

South of the church is a marble sarcophagus bearing the name of Saint Agapios or "Agapitikos", that is, the venerable Agapios. To the north is another, bearing the name "Misios" or "Misitikos", names altered by superstitious villagers; it most likely belongs to the venerable Barlaam. The service of the saint was printed in 1914 in Alexandria, Egypt. He is commemorated on 26 April, according to the calendar of the Church of Greece (new style). His veneration is local, in Cyprus.