Euphemian the Wonderworker

Saint Euphemian the Wonderworker was a hermit of Cyprus, honoured with a church in the village of Lysi. He is commemorated on 14 November (new style, in the Church of Cyprus).

According to the chronicler Leontios Machairas, he lived near the village of Lefkoniko in the Mesaoria plain and was one of the three hundred refugees from Palestine who fled to Cyprus during the Arab persecution of the middle of the twelfth century. These men, ordinary Greek Christians, had set out to fight in the Second Crusade (1147 to 1149), but when they reached Palestine the fighting was over. They went to Jerusalem and venerated the Holy Places, and then wished to live as ascetics in the wilderness of the Jordan, but Arab raids forced them to flee to Cyprus, where each retired to live alone.

Euphemian wandered through many places, hills, mountains and ravines, and came to the place where the chapel bearing his name now stands. He lived in a cave, in a hole in the ground, and drank water from a nearby river. In prayer, fasting and vigil, divine grace overshadowed him and he received the gift of working many miracles for the benefit of Christians. Many came to hear his words and receive his blessing. He died in old age, beloved by the people, and was buried where he had lived. Around 1300 the faithful built a picturesque Byzantine church in his honour and adorned it with frescoes.

With time the saint's name was corrupted in the Cypriot dialect into Phenianos, Thymianos or Thomianos. According to local tradition he cures insomnia. Before the Turkish invasion of 1974, thousands of people came to the church on his feast, 14 November. Today it lies in the occupied area. Its fourteenth-⁠century frescoes were removed and came to light in Houston, Texas; in 1992 the Menil Foundation received them on loan for twenty years, acknowledging that they belong to the Church of Cyprus, and in 1997 it displayed them in a purpose-⁠built Byzantine Fresco Chapel.