Nikita the Slav

Holy Hieromartyr Nikita the Slav was a hieromonk on Mount Athos and suffered at Serres, in Macedonia, on 4 April 1808, on the evening of Holy Saturday.

A Slav by birth from Albania, he struggled at the end of the eighteenth century on Athos, in the Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon, where he was tonsured and ordained hieromonk. Desiring quiet, he moved to the skete of Saint Anne. He burned with the wish to serve Christ through confession, so, to answer the opponents of Christianity, he went to the city of Serres. He stayed for a time in a monastery there, preparing for the struggle that awaited him.

One day he approached the mosque of Ahmed Pasha, which had once been the church of Saint Sophia. A Muslim teacher lived there with disciples. Father Nikita offered one of them, a lame man, healing if he would believe in Jesus Christ, the only true God, and be baptised. The lame man told his teacher, who summoned the monk; he repeated what he had said, and so he was handed over to the ruler of the city as one teaching against their faith. Before him too he confessed Christ and was thrown into prison. Then, before learned and zealous Muslims, he said that the Christian faith was preached through right doctrines by twelve poor and unarmed men, the apostles, and confirmed by miracles, and that, though persecuted by many tyrants, it will remain unconquered to the end of the ages. He spoke harshly of the founder of Islam, calling him a deceiver, and he grieved for the unbelievers left in error. Under threats he was pressed to take up Islam, but he confessed his faith in Christ firmly. In prison he endured cruel torments: his head was squeezed in screws, needles were driven under his nails, and hung head downward he was burned with fire. He bore it all with great patience and did not cease to glorify Christ. At last he was condemned to death and hanged on the evening of Holy Saturday. That night the faithful saw a great light that lit up the whole neighbourhood.

Christians ransomed his body and buried it. On 19 February 1809 the hieromonk Constantius of the monastery of Serres and the local physician Nicholas wrote to the Rusik, the Russian monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Athos, about the martyr's struggle.

His memory is kept on 20 May, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of the Saint Panteleimon Monastery on Athos, and on 4 July (a movable day) in the Synaxis of the Athonite Saints, in the new style.