St. Nikon the Metanoeite

Nikon was born about the year 930 in Pontus, in the region of Polemonion on the southern shore of the Black Sea, the son of a wealthy landowner. While still young he fled his father's house and his inheritance, longing for God alone, and entered the monastery of Chrysopetro, the Golden Rock, on the border of Pontus and Paphlagonia, where he was tonsured and trained in the ascetic life.

After twelve years his abbot sent him out to preach repentance to the world. He went through the towns and villages of Asia Minor crying the one word that became his name, Metanoeite, Repent, and at that word multitudes turned from their sins. He passed through Paphlagonia, Pontus, and Armenia, calling all to amendment of life and to the mercy of God.

When the general Nikephoros Phokas recovered Crete from the Arabs in the year 961, after long generations of Saracen rule, Nikon crossed to the island and preached there for some seven years, baptizing, instructing, and restoring the Christian faith to a people who had nearly lost it. From Crete he went on to the Peloponnese, to Euboea and the islands, and at last to Lacedaemon, the old Sparta, where he settled.

At Lacedaemon he built a church of the Saviour's Transfiguration and gathered disciples about him. The tradition records many wonders worked through him, healings of the sick and the deliverance of the city from a deadly plague when the people heeded his call to repentance. He guided the city as a father, rebuking the powerful and comforting the lowly, until his repose around the year 998.

His Life was written by Gregory, abbot of the monastery Nikon founded at Sparta, and from it the Church has kept his memory. He is honoured as Nikon the Metanoeite, the Preacher of Repentance, on the twenty-sixth of November.