Potitus of Gargara

Holy Martyr Potitus of Gargara lived in the second century and suffered in the time of the emperor Antoninus (138-161), because he would not worship idols.

His father was a pagan, but Potitus, who had known the Christian teaching from the age of thirteen, believed in the true God and received Holy Baptism. His father was grieved and tried first by gentleness and then by threats to turn him from the faith, but without success; astonished by the young man's firm faith, he too believed in the Son of God. Potitus travelled through many lands preaching Christ and worked, by the power of God, great wonders.

In the region of Epirus lived a woman of noble family, Cyriacia, wife of a senator, sick with leprosy. Hearing of Potitus, she called him and asked to be healed. The saint told her that if she believed in Christ she would be well. She received Baptism and was healed at once; seeing the miracle, her husband and all the household believed and were baptized.

Then the saint settled on Mount Gargara, living in solitude, surrounded by birds and beasts. There the servants of the emperor Antoninus found him, whose daughter was possessed by a demon. The demon said through the girl's mouth that it would come out only at the coming of Potitus. The young saint was brought to the emperor and through his prayer the sick girl was healed. Instead of thanks, the emperor treated him with unheard-⁠of cruelty: for his firm confession of the faith and his refusal to sacrifice to the pagan gods, to whom Antoninus ascribed the healing of his daughter, his tongue was torn out and he was blinded. After long torments the martyr was beheaded.

The relics of the saint are at Tricarico, in the Cathedral of the Dormition of the Mother of God, where they were found on 14 January 1506 in the church of the Knights of the Order of Malta. In Ascoli Satriano a church was consecrated in his honour and a small part of his relics, a bone of the forearm, is kept there in a reliquary in the form of a bust of the saint.

St Potitus is commemorated on 14 July, in the new style.