Tarasius

Saint Tarasius the Venerable was a hermit and wonderworker in Lycaonia. He is commemorated on 7 May (new style, the calendar of the Church of Greece); a Byzantine synaxarion places him on 8 May. It is said of him that from infancy he was a chosen vessel: he gave himself to severe ascetic labours, fasting, prayer, tears and sleeping on the ground, and for his great virtue God granted him great gifts, to drive out demons, raise the dead, cleanse lepers and heal incurable illnesses. Knowing his departure beforehand, after a short illness he went to the Lord in the company of the holy angels.

The Greek page adds that the relics of a Tarasius were carried from Constantinople to Venice between 1018 and 1025, as relics of Patriarch Tarasius, and are kept today in a sarcophagus above the Holy Table of the church of Saint Zachary in Venice.