Nikita of Niros

Holy Martyr Nikita of Niros was a fifteen-⁠year-⁠old youth from the island of Nisyros, who returned to the Christian faith after his parents had renounced it and who received martyrdom on Chios in 1792.

He was born in 1777. His father, a man of standing on the island of Nisyros, was brought to trial and renounced Christ to save his life; the Turks also forced his wife and children to take up Islam. Nikita was still small and did not understand what had happened. He grew up with the name Mehmed and showed great interest in religion. One day he quarrelled with another boy, whose mother reviled him with the words the Turks usually use for Christians. The words hurt him and made him press his mother with questions, and he learned that his real name was Nikita and that his family had been Christian.

Obeying the voice of conscience, he left his family and reached the monastery of Nea Moni on Chios. The abbot entrusted him to Saint Macarius of Corinth, who was living there then. Saint Macarius heard his confession and anointed him with chrism for his return to the bosom of the Church. Nikita lived in the monastery for a time, so zealous that some thought him out of his mind. Seeking a stricter life, he withdrew to a cave in which the founders of the monastery had lived, and told the hermit Anthimus that he wished to suffer martyrdom. On his return he begged the fathers to allow him to fulfil his wish; they served a supplication to the Mother of God and blessed him.

He came to Chora, the capital of Chios, where he was stopped at once to pay the tax levied on Christians who travel from place to place. While the other offenders were gathered to be taken to prison together, he was placed under guard near a coffee house, where a priest he knew, Father Daniel, saw him, called him Mehmed and asked why a Muslim was being made to pay the Christians' tax. The guards heard the young man call himself a Christian and took him at once to the aga. Before him Nikita confessed his decision without fear. For ten days he was tormented, and each time he was brought back to the prison he refused food, telling the others that he was fed with food they did not know. He was thrown into a stable to be trampled by horses, but remained unharmed by God's grace, and in a dark cell an ineffable light shone. Then he was given to the angry crowd, which dragged him to the edge of the town. To the last attempts to turn him back to Islam he replied, "I am a Christian, my name is Nikita, and I want to die as Nikita." They knelt him several times as for execution, hoping he would be frightened, but he cried out for them to kill him sooner. The jailer Kremlis took a sword and struck him several times on the back of the neck to increase the pain. Thus the young servant of Christ received the crown of victory on 21 June 1792, at the age of fifteen.

Blind people who anointed themselves with his blood saw at once. The Turks poured mud over the body so as not to leave it to the Christians, but it stayed clean and beautiful as a flower. Then they threw the body into the sea.

His memory is kept on 4 July, according to the Greek calendar. Nikita is not included in the present calendar of the Russian Orthodox Church.