Therapon

Holy Hieromartyr Therapon was, according to tradition, bishop of Cyprus and lived in the seventh century or the beginning of the eighth (the Serbian source places an event connected with him in 806, in the time of the emperor Nikephoros). His commemoration is on 14 May, according to the Greek source, and according to the Serbian one on 25 May by the old calendar (7 June by the new). The dates of his birth and death are not known.

His origin is not known either. He may have come from the East or, more probably, from Alamania. First he was a monk and ascetic in Cyprus, and according to one source he travelled as a missionary through Asia Minor. For his Christian life he received the episcopal rank. According to Christian tradition, he was consecrated bishop of Cyprus and suffered at the hands of Hagarene raiders. In a persecution he was tormented for Christ. His body rested in a church in Cyprus. It is said that in the year 806, in the time of the emperor Nikephoros, when the Hagarenes attacked the island, Therapon appeared to the keeper of that church, told him that the unbelievers would strike Cyprus and ordered him to carry his relics to Constantinople, which he did at once.

It is said that when the ship with the reliquary set out to sea, a great storm arose, but around the ship the sea was calm, and from the reliquary a sweet fragrance of myrrh spread over the whole ship and around. Then the keeper opened the reliquary and all saw it full of myrrh flowing from the holy relics. Christians believe that many sick people anointed themselves with this myrrh and were healed. At Constantinople a church was built over Therapon's relics, where there is a place of pilgrimage that flows with myrrh. Parts of his holy relics are kept at the Zographou Monastery on Mount Athos, at the church of Saint Therapon at Zographou in Athens, at his church in Mytilene, at the church of Saint Demetrius at Lechovo, Florina, and at the church of Saint Therapon at Kato Toumba, Thessaloniki, built by refugees from Asia Minor and which is the continuation of the great pilgrimage place of the saint in the Bournabat suburb of Smyrna.

According to Christian tradition, Saint Therapon performed many miracles, the greatest of which was the raising of the son of a Jewish woman. There is also a village of the same name in Cyprus. Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain wrote the service of the saint, which was corrected in 1785, at the urging of Metropolitan Jeremiah of Mytilene, by his archdeacon Agapios of Paros. A supplicatory canon for the saint was written by Protopresbyter Athanasios Giousmas.