Heraclidius

Saint Heraclidius was, in the first century, the first bishop of Tamassos in Cyprus, and is venerated as a disciple of the holy Apostles Paul and Barnabas.

Christian writings of the fifth to seventh centuries preserve that before baptism he was called Eraclidis and was the son of a pagan priest. When Paul and Barnabas crossed Cyprus on their first missionary journey, he is said to have shown them the way from Salamis to Paphos and to have led them also to Tamassos, a city rich through its copper mines. The apostles baptized him and later made him bishop of Tamassos, among the first in Cyprus. A seventh-⁠century text on Saint Auxibius calls him archbishop of Cyprus, who set Auxibius over Soloi, and Epaphras and Tychicus, disciples of Paul, over Paphos and Neapolis (Limassol). He shepherded the community of Tamassos together with Mnason, mentioned in the Acts of the Apostles (21:16), who succeeded him. His Life records several miracles, among them the raising of the pagan woman Trofimi, who had fallen dead from grief at the death of her son.

He died at the age of sixty in Tamassos and was buried in the cave where he had lived and preached the Gospel. Some old writings speak of his martyric death, and by liturgical and iconographic tradition he is venerated as a martyr. A martyrion was built over his tomb, and it forms part of the monastery of Saint Heraclidius at Politiko, near the ruins of Tamassos; his skull and a bone, probably of an arm, are kept as relics in the main church. The monastery was founded about the year 400, renewed in 1773, abandoned from 1821 to 1962, and since 1962 nuns have lived there. The saint is commemorated on 17 September.