New-Martyr Polydorus of Cyprus

Lapse and Repentance

According to the account of his life, while in Egypt Polydorus entered the service of a wealthy apostate from Zakynthos and fell into a dissolute manner of living. One evening, while intoxicated, he renounced his Christian faith and professed Islam. Though he gained wealth and standing, he is said to have found no peace and to have been weighed down by guilt.

Recalling his mother's counsel about the consolation of confession, he left Egypt for Beirut, where he confessed his apostasy to an Orthodox bishop. He afterward traveled to Chios, where, the tradition relates, he was restored to the Church through confession, anointing, and communion before preparing himself for martyrdom through prayer, fasting, and vigil.

Confession and Martyrdom

Polydorus then went to New Ephesus in Asia Minor, where he openly confessed his Christian faith before the Muslim authorities. The account relates that he declared himself a Christian who would remain a Christian and was ready to die a Christian. Refusing both threats and inducements, he was imprisoned and subjected to severe torture through the night.

On September 3, 1794, he was led to the gallows and hanged, holding to his confession of Christ to the end. By the account his body was left on the gallows for three days before Christians retrieved it for burial near the Armenian cemetery.

Relics

By tradition the saint's skull was preserved and, during the upheavals in Asia Minor in 1922, was carried to Greece, where it was kept at a church in Athens. On August 28, 2012, the relic was returned to Cyprus and enshrined in a church dedicated to the saint in his native city, received by Archbishop Chrysostomos of Cyprus.