Saint of the Day – 3 April – Saint Nicetas of Medicion (c760-824) Abbot

Saint of the Day – 3 April – Saint Nicetas of Medicion (c760-824) Abbot of Medicion Abbey in Bithynia (in modern Turkey). Born in c760 in Bithynian, Caesarea and died in 824 of natural causes in Constantinople. Also known as –
Nicetas of Constantinople, Nicetas the Confessor, Niketas… Nikita… His name is of Greek origin and means “victorious.”

The Roman Martyrology reads: “In the Monastery of Medicion, in the East, the Abbot, St Nicetas, who suffered much for the worship of holy images, in the time of Leo the Armenian.”

Nicetaswas only eight days old when he lost his mother. His father dedicated him to God and, at the age of twelve, he was already the Lector of the Bishop of Caesarea of ​​Bithynia. As a teenager, he entered the Medicion Monastery, on Mount Olympus in Bithynia.

His life of rigour and humility, led his fellow Monks to choose him as their Abbot.. During the persecutions of the Sacred Images, at the time of Emperor Leo V the Armenian, he allowed himself to commune with heretics, after having been exhausted by harsh imprisonment. Repentant, he fled to a secluded place. But to publicly demonstrate his repentance of heart, at the request of Theodore the Studite, he returned to Constantinople. For this action he was arrested and interned at the prison at Cape Akritas, he was locked up there for six years in a dungeon, without light and fed on a little mouldy bread and stale water.

He was finally released on the death of the Emperor but he did not want to reclaim the management of his Monastery and retired to a small estate on the Golden Horn, facing Constantinople. After a few months, he died, exhausted by the suffering and his own austerities. His remains were brought back to his Monastery of Medicion

Several medieval lives of Nicetas exist. The most important of these is the life by Theosterictus, who states that he was a disciple of St Nicetas.