Our righteous Father Neophytus the Recluse of Cyprus.
Saint Neophytus is a heroic Saint who has not received the renown and general veneration, at least in the part of the Church still on earth, that he deserves. He was born in 1134 at Leucara in Cyprus. Jerusalem, the Holy Land, and much of the Mediterranean was under the control of the Moslems; and many of those parts that were not, were under the control of the Crusaders, who oppressed the Orthodox Christians in ways more insidious than the Moslems.
At the age of eighteen, wishing to dedicate himself to the service of God rather than submit to his parents’ wish to have him married, Saint Neophytus fled to the Monastery of Saint John Chrysostom. After serving in the monastery for five years, laboring in the monastery vineyard, he received permission to fulfill his desire to visit the Holy Land. He venerated the holy places in Jerusalem, and then in Magdala, Tabor, and the Jordan, spending six months searching the caves and deserts for an ascetic who could be to him a spiritual guide. Finding none, he returned to Cyprus. When again he received his abbot’s blessing to go to Mount Latros, he was arrested at the port of Paphos and held in prison until he was released at the request of pious Christians who had learned of his plight. He saw in this an indication from God that it was not His will that he leave Cyprus. He found a mountainside cave north of Paphos which he cleared out through his own labors and dwelt in from then on with extreme privation and intense dedication to prayer.
Although Saint Neophytus was illiterate upon entering the monastery, through diligent application to study, and by the grace of God working in his pure heart, he learned not only to read (he knew the entire Psalter by heart) but to write very eloquently and extensively, which was a timely gift of divine Providence for the Orthodox people of Cyprus. On May 6, 1191, the Norman King of England, Richard the Lion-hearted, captured Cyprus on his way from Sicily to Jerusalem in the Third Crusade. Cyprus remained in the hands of one Frankish ruler or another until 1958.
Papal rule was imposed on Cyprus; bishops and the educated were exiled. From his mountainside cave Saint Neophytus sent a river of epistles and other writings to the people of Cyprus to keep them steadfast in the Orthodox Faith and, while himself living in extreme seclusion, privation, and dedication to prayer, he protected his people from being subverted by their Papal overlords. Saint Neophytus is worthy to be remembered as a single-handed champion of the Orthodox Faith together with Saint Maximus the Confessor and Saint Mark of Ephesus. He reposed in peace on April 12, 1219, and has been glorified by God with miracles throughout the centuries.
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