Sister Athanasia, Agios Herakleidios

The courtyard of Agios Herakleidios Monastery

 'During his career as a bishop he is reported to have built churches, cured diseases, raised the dead, cast out devils, and worked innumerable other wonders. He was burnt at last by the idolaters together with Myron, his successor in the See of Tamasos. Even so late as 1769 his miraculous powers do not seem to have entirely deserted him, as the following well-attested story proves: A certain Hadji Savvas, an inhabitant of the Phaneromeni quarter of Nicosia, had a son named John, the victim of demoniacal possession. During a festival held in honour of Herakleides the parents brought the child to the saint's shrine in hopes that the latter might do something to alleviate his suffering. While the Holy Mysteries were being celebrated a most strange occurrence took place. The boy suddenly falling to the ground in convulsions began to vomit, when to the astonishment of the beholders, his ghostly tormentor issued forth in the shape of a snake, a span long, and two crabs. These reptiles were afterwards hung up publicly in the church to confirm the faith of the credulous and to silence the cavils of the unbelievers.'

Church of Cyprus (1900)