Neophytus of Nicaea

Saint Neophytus, martyr, was from Nicaea, a young man who suffered for Christ in the time of the emperor Diocletian, in the year 290. He is commemorated on 21 January by the old calendar, which is 3 February by the new.

Already as a child he worked great miracles, by the grace of God. He drew water from a rock and raised his dead mother. A white dove led him to Mount Olympus, where he drove a lion out of a cave and the lion settled inside. A Ukrainian source says that he worked miracles at the age of ten and that he lived in a cave, glorifying God by his ascetic life.

He was tormented for Christ at fifteen, in the time of the emperor Diocletian, at Nicaea. He would not renounce Christ. After beatings and prison he was thrown into fire, but God kept him alive. Then they set him before a hungry lion, but the lion fawned around Neophytus. The saint recognized in the lion the one in whose cave he had struggled, and he stroked it and told it to go again to its cave. Then Neophytus was pierced with a spear and his soul passed to the dwellings of the Lord.