Saint Myron the Wonderworker Bishop of Crete

Life and Episcopacy

By tradition Saint Myron was born about 250 in the village of Rhaukos in Crete, near Knossos, and flourished in the era before the First Ecumenical Council. In his youth he was a family man who worked as a farmer, and his lives describe him as known for his goodness and ready to assist everyone who turned to him for help.

Following the death of his wife, the Cretan people urged him to accept ordination to the priesthood in his native city, and afterward chose him as Bishop of Crete. The sources note that the principal see of the island in this period is variously identified, with Gortyna and Knossos both named in the tradition. He is also styled Archbishop of Crete.

He is said to have reposed in peace around the year 350 at the age of about one hundred. Although he is venerated among the holy bishops, the tradition records that he died a natural and quiet death rather than as a martyr.

Miracles and Traditional Accounts

The best-known account of his charity concerns thieves who burst in upon his threshing floor. Rather than confront them, Myron himself helped them lift a sack of grain onto their shoulders; his generosity so shamed the thieves that they afterward turned to honorable lives. One telling numbers them at twelve and has the saint sending them off with the counsel to steal no more.

As bishop he was credited with the gift of wonderworking. The most celebrated miracle attributed to him is the stopping of a flood on the River Triton: the saint halted its flow and crossed it as upon dry land, then sent a man back to the river with his staff to command its waters to resume their course.

Another tradition relates that in his earlier life he distributed the grapes of his parents' vineyard to the poor, and that when the vines appeared bare a single remaining bunch multiplied into enough wine for the whole village.

Veneration and Relics

Saint Myron is commemorated on August 8. His native village of Rhaukos was renamed Agios Myron (Saint Myron) in his honor.

By later report his veneration reached the West: villages in Cornwall and in Huntingdonshire in England are said to bear his name, the latter reportedly receiving his relics roughly a century after his repose.