Miklos

Venerable Mikallos (in Greek Mikallos) was a hermit of Akanthou, in Cyprus, one of the three hundred saints who came to the island about the middle of the twelfth century, after the Second Crusade (1147 to 1149). Our data put his death around the year 1200. He is remembered on 7 August.

Life

Nothing is known of his childhood, his parents and his homeland. It is said that, being young, he was forced to go abroad, in search of a better life. He came to Germany, where he worked as a labourer, together with other Greeks. One day he heard there a sermon that shook him, about freeing the Holy Places from the Muslims. In a short time many people gathered and a great army was formed, known as the Second Crusade, which dispersed in what is now Yugoslavia. Among the army corps were also three hundred Greeks, led by a German, later called Venerable Auxentius. When the army dispersed, the Greeks gathered and, after a fervent speech by their leader, decided to go to the regions of the Jordan and to live there a life of struggle dedicated to God.

The proposal was received with enthusiasm. First they all went to worship at Jerusalem. Then they went on toward the desert of the Jordan. Their daily life was fasting, prayer, vigil and reading of the Holy Scriptures. But the place did not at all help the life they had chosen. Enemies of Christianity began to harass them and, to escape, they gathered one day on the shore, to leave the desert of the Jordan. They found a ship, boarded it and set out for Cyprus. The ship stopped at Paphos. It is said that, because of a great storm, the ship was broken on the rocks, and the people were saved on the wreckage and came out on dry land. Later they scattered to different parts of the island and each lived piously, in his own way. Mikallos, in the region of Akanthou, found two caves which still stand today and began his spiritual struggle there.

Veneration

Tradition says that his wonderworking power has continued to this day for those who with faith visited his little church beside the caves and washed with his holy water, which they visited until the invasion of 1974. Many link him with the healing of malaria and leprosy. It is also said that nursing mothers who had no milk went and "nursed" from the stalactites in the caves, asking his help, which they are said to have received. It is also said that a sweet fragrance came out of the two caves until recent times and reached as far as the fields worked by the farmers of Akanthou. Beside the caves there is still a green myrtle, "the myrtle of Venerable Mikallos", to which healing powers were attributed. The Orthodox Church counts him a saint and remembers his name on 7 August. There are hymns and a eulogy dedicated to him.

The story of the arrival of the three hundred is a Cypriot tradition kept in late sources, and its historicity cannot be checked. His veneration is first of all Cypriot and local.