Spyridon of Cyprus

As for Spyridon, his holiness while he was a shepherd was so great that he was thought worthy to be made a shepherd of men. He was given the bishopric of one of the cities in Cyprus, named Trimithus, and because of his great humility he went on tending his sheep while he held the bishopric. Many extraordinary things are told of him, but I will record only one or two, so as not to seem to wander from my subject. [a]

Once, about midnight, thieves crept secretly into his sheepfold and tried to carry off some of the sheep. But God, who protected the shepherd, preserved his sheep as well, for the thieves were bound fast to the pens by an invisible power. At daybreak, when he came to the sheep and found the men with their hands tied behind them, he understood what had happened. After praying, he set the thieves free, earnestly warning and urging them to support themselves by honest work and not to take anything unjustly. Then he gave them a ram and sent them away, adding with a touch of humor: “So that you will not seem to have stayed up all night for nothing.” This is one of Spyridon’s miracles.

Another was of this kind. He had a daughter, a virgin named Irene, who shared her father’s devotion. An acquaintance gave her a valuable ornament to keep. To guard it more safely, she hid what had been entrusted to her in the ground, and not long afterward she died. Later the owner came to claim his property. Not finding the young woman, he began to argue heatedly with her father, at one moment accusing him of trying to cheat him, at the next begging him to give back what had been left in her keeping. The old man, counting this man’s loss as his own misfortune, went to his daughter’s tomb and called on God to show him the promised resurrection before its proper time. Nor was he disappointed in his hope. The virgin came back to life and appeared to her father, showed him the spot where she had hidden the ornament, and then departed once more.

Such were the men who adorned the churches in the time of the emperor Constantine. I learned these details from many people living in Cyprus. I have also found a book written in Latin by the presbyter Rufinus, from which I have gathered these and some other things that I will bring in later.