John the Cave-⁠dweller

Venerable John the Cave-⁠dweller, also called the Potamites, was an ascetic who lived in a cave near the village of Sia, in the Nicosia district of Cyprus. He is commemorated on 26 September as a locally honoured saint; he has no known canonization.

About three kilometres north-⁠east of the village of Sia, toward Alambra, there is a ruined church beside a stream, called "Ais Giannis". The first church there was built not in the name of Saint John the Theologian but in honour of the local saint John the Cave-⁠dweller. The ruined church of today was raised in 1870, of stone, square in shape, with a tiled roof; inside, in the middle, is a vault where probably the saint's relics were kept. Today it is abandoned. About ten metres east of the church, in the rock, is a hewn cave used by the ascetic as shelter, especially in winter. In it can still be seen the saint's stone bed and even the small knife with which he dug the cave.

Five holy men struggled in that region, of whom three were revealed: Therapon, Eutychios and John the Cave-⁠dweller. In the year 700 there was a Roman settlement there called Pampoulia, where saints came from Palestine, among them the five. John passed through Sia, dug his cave and lived in it; hence the name John the Cave-⁠dweller.

In 2002, after a fire in the area, three priests went to see whether the little churches had been touched. In a corner of the cave they found a forgotten board; after it was cleaned by a conservator it proved to be an old and precious icon of Saint John the Cave-⁠dweller. It is kept and brought out for veneration only on the day of the feast. On the scroll the saint holds is written: "My hope is the Father, my refuge the Son, my shelter the Holy Spirit."

In recent years miracles have been ascribed to him. He healed a fifteen-⁠year-⁠old boy from the village of Kornos, ill with leukemia, when his parents ran to the saint. A young man from Kokkinochoria, paralysed after a fall from scaffolding, saw the saint in a dream, who told him to come to his cave and lie on his bed; the young man went, lay on the stone bed, called on the saint's help and rose healthy. A Christian from Lymbia, who had an accident on the old Mosfiloti to Alambra road, near the bridge that leads to the saint's church, with his two infant children who had fractures, saw a shining elder in white robes who took the two children in his arms and lifted them, so they were hurt no more; he then learned that the church of Saint John the Cave-⁠dweller was nearby and went to venerate.