Sozomenus of Potamia

Cyprus had two hermit saints named Sozomenos: the one of the Karpas peninsula, commemorated on 20 November, and Sozomenus of Potamia, in the Nicosia district, commemorated on 21 November. This record, at 20 November, tells chiefly of Sozomenos of Karpasia, and the traditions of the two are often mixed.

A codex from the Monastery of the Holy Trinity at Rizokarpaso says that Sozomenos came from Karpasia. From his service it is learned that he lived before the Frankish rule of Cyprus, around 1100. His God-⁠fearing parents led him from childhood to the reading and knowledge of the word of God. When grown, he left home for the wilderness, caring only to please God. After much wandering he came to a cave in the face of a high cliff, on Mount Kompsa, and stayed there. It is said that on entering the cave he made the sign of the cross and began softly to sing a hymn asking the Word of God to lift his heart, and that nothing of the delights of the world should draw it down to lowly things.

In time his fame spread. He turned no one away, and his dwelling was open to all; the gift of healing with which God endowed him he offered to those who came with faith and repentance. After a life pleasing to God he gave his soul to the Lord, and the Christians buried him in the depths of the cave. His tomb became a place of healing. Local tradition also says that Saint Auxentios, who lived farther north, came to Sozomenos every Saturday evening, and together they prayed until Sunday evening; from this it is concluded that Sozomenos was one of the 300 Christians who came to Cyprus from Palestine in the time of the Arab persecutions. The monk Akakios, who wrote his service (in 1731), also calls him bishop of Karpasia, although in the church he is painted as an old man, not as a hierarch. Thousands of pilgrims gather at his cave on 20 November.

Sozomenus of Potamia, according to a service manuscript copied in 1780, left Palestine in the time of Arab rule and reached Cyprus with a company of 300 Christians. He settled north of the village of Potamia in a cave dug into the rock, where he fasted, kept vigil and received the gift of healing; his tomb is preserved there, and the paintings of the cave show four of his miracles. In a cross made in 1340 by Patriarch Ignatius of Antioch against the locusts a small part of his relics was placed.