Tuesday, December 24, 2019

SAINT NICETAS

St. Nicetas
Nicetas of Medikion, Abbot
Feast day: April 3

Born in Caesarea, Bithynia; died at Constantinople on April 3, 824. The father of Saint Nicetas entered a monastery a few years after his mother died when he was just a week old, and he was raised in the monastery. He became a monk at Medikion Monastery at the foot of Mount Olympus, Bithynia, was ordained in 790 by Saint Tarasius, and in time became abbot.

When Nicetas and a group of other abbots refused the demand of the iconoclastic Emperor Leo the Armenian that they recognize the intruded Theodotus as patriarch of Constantinople, who Leo had appointed to replace the exiled Patriarch Nicephorus, Nicetas was exiled to Anatolia (Turkey), where he was subjected to ill treatment.

When he was brought back to Constantinople, he accepted Theodotus as patriarch and was returned to his monastery. He soon repented publicly, withdrew his allegiance to the patriarch, and denounced iconoclasm. He was then exiled to the isle of Glyceria in 813, released when Michael the Stammerer became emperor in 820, and lived as a hermit near Constantinople until his death there

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