Saint Phokas Hieromartyr the Miracle Worker
Celebration date: 22/09
Agios Phokas’ homeland was Sinope on the Black Sea. His parents Pamphylos (a shipbuilder by profession) and Maria passed on to Fokas from his childhood the flame of their pure faith and their fervent piety. From an early age, Fokas indulged in reading the Scriptures, and what particularly distinguished him was the warm and sincere love he had for God, but also for his fellow human beings.
Because as a guide in his love, he always had the divinely inspired words of the Holy Bible: “He who loves his brother abides in the light,… but he who hates his brother is in darkness” (I John, II 10- 11). That is, he who loves his brother abides in the spiritual and moral light. On the contrary, he who hates his brother remains in spiritual and moral darkness.
He was made Bishop of Sinope and was blessed to have the gift of performing miracles in the name of the Triune God. He developed intense missionary activity in the area of his Diocese, a fact that did not go unnoticed by some fanatical pagans. Indeed, the Prefect Africanus, ordered his arrest and he was thrown into a hot bath, where he surrendered his spirit, during the years of Emperor Trajan (98 – 117 AD).
