Lamprianus the Wonderworker

Saint Lamprianus the Wonderworker is a local saint of Paphos, officially recognised by the Church of Cyprus, but without a service and without a day of commemoration. He is the only officially recognised saint in Cyprus whose memory is not celebrated, because his name is absent from the Church's calendar.

He is known chiefly through the catacomb that bears his name at Kato Paphos, right opposite the famous catacomb of Saint Solomone. He is also honoured in a cave at the place Petridkia in the village of Emba, in Paphos, called the Cave of Ai Limbros; water flows from its mouth continually and is believed to be the saint's holy water, used for skin diseases. It is told that in the past the cave was full of clothes the faithful left in order to be healed; some still bring them today. He is also believed to heal headaches: the faithful pull out strands of hair and stick them on the icon. Many say that they have seen him sitting in his cave.

No one knows where he came from or when he lived, and his likeness is known only because the painter Parthenios painted his icon in the late eighteenth or early nineteenth century. It is believed he was one of the 300 Alamanoi who came to Cyprus from Palestine and struggled in various places on the island.