Tychon of Amathus

Saint Tychon the Hierarch, bishop of Amathus in Cyprus, was a pastor of the fifth century, venerated as a wonderworker. He fell asleep around the year 425, and the Church commemorates him on 16 June, by the old calendar.

Youth

He was born in Amathus, on the south coast of Cyprus, in the time of the emperors Arcadius and Honorius, to a poor family. His father was a baker. His parents brought him up in the true faith and taught him to read the holy Scriptures. He was received into the clergy and made a reader, and later Memnon, bishop of Amathus, ordained him deacon. Saint Tychon worked miracles from his youth. It is said that whenever his father left him alone in the shop, he gave the bread to the poor. When his father rebuked him, Tychon prayed to God and their granary was filled to the top.

Bishop

After the death of Memnon, Saint Tychon was chosen bishop of Amathus by the whole community of the faithful, for the purity of his life and his zeal for the true faith. In those days there were still many idolaters in Cyprus. The saint brought them to Christ with apostolic zeal, destroyed pagan shrines and raised churches in their place. He was merciful, the door of his house was open to all, he listened with love and fulfilled the requests of anyone who came to him, and he confessed his faith fearlessly before the pagans.

It is told of him that he planted a dry shoot of a vine, which turned green and bore fruit. For this he is held to be the patron of Amathus and of vine growers. It is also said that he turned a dry field green for desperate farmers. In his struggle against idolatry he broke the statue of the goddess Aphrodite when some of her worshippers, in a cult procession, passed before his church. Other accounts say that he entered a temple of Artemis and drove out a priestess named Anthousa, though some place this deed too in a temple of Aphrodite. In Amathus Aphrodite Amathusia was worshipped, while the cure for paganism was attributed to Artemis, so the text may be confused.

He foresaw the hour of his death, which came around the year 425. He lived in peace to the end and always strove to bring peace to those around him. Later he was regarded as a healer of the possessed.

Veneration

His life was written by John the Merciful, Patriarch of Alexandria, who was born in Amathus. The village of Agios Tychonas in Cyprus, near the ruins of Amathus, bears his name. In Russia he was venerated especially in the diocese of Voronezh, where three bishops in succession bore his name.