Niketas of Pojani and Serres

Holy New Martyr Niketas of Pojani and Serres was a Slav from Albania; nothing is known of his family or early life. He lived on Mount Athos at the Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon, then at the Skete of Saint Anne. Burning with a desire for martyrdom, he decided to travel to Serres, where he arrived on 30 March 1808 (Great and Holy Monday) and stopped at a local monastery. Speaking with the abbot, he said that he was a hieromonk from Athos. At midnight the abbot, making his customary rounds, saw someone praying in the moonlight on the church porch. Coming closer, he recognized Father Niketas, who revealed his intention to shed his blood for Christ. After speaking with him a while, the abbot continued his rounds and left him to pray.

In the morning Niketas received Communion from the Presanctified Gifts and went to a mosque outside the city, where he debated religion with a Muslim teacher and his disciples. He approached one of them, who was lame, and asked why he did not seek healing. The man said it was impossible, since he had been born that way. The monk said he could be cured easily if he obeyed him: "Believe in Jesus Christ as the one true God. If you are baptized, I promise you that you will be healthy and no trace of lameness will remain." The man went to tell his teacher. The teacher asked the saint where he came from and what he had said to his disciple. Fearlessly, the warrior of Christ answered that he was from Albania and had come to preach Christianity, and that out of pity for the lame man he had advised him to believe in Christ so as to receive bodily health and the Kingdom of Heaven after death.

The teacher sent word to the mayor that a monk had come to the city and was speaking against their religion. Niketas was locked in prison for the night, and the next day was interrogated by Muslim religious leaders. Unable to defeat him by argument, they tortured him and hanged him on the evening of Great and Holy Saturday in 1808. He was left hanging until Bright Tuesday, when Christians were allowed to take his body and bury it. Saint Niketas is revered as the patron of Serres, the place of his martyrdom. He is also commemorated on the Sunday of Saint Thomas. Two separate services have been composed in his honor, one in Slavonic and one in Greek, and a comparison of the two shows a difference of opinion about the saint's national origin. He is commemorated on 4 April (new style; 17 April on the old calendar).