THE VENERABLE MARTYR NICETAS

April 4

From the Prologue

Nicetas was a Slav from Albania. As a monk of the Holy Mountain (Mt. Athos), he went to Serres where he debated with the Mullahs about religion. Being that they could not overcome him with reason, the Turks subjected him to torture under which Nicetas, the holy one, died and gave up his soul to his God in the year 1808 A.D.

HYMN OF PRAISE

THE HOLY FEMALE MARTYR PHERBUTHA

The handmaiden of the Lord, the virgin Pherbutha,

As an innocent lamb, to the slaughter, remained silent,

Neither says she: Woe! Nor says, woe is me!

But with joy received and endured the suffering.

She despised earthly illusions and falsehoods,

For to her, the Lord was more dear than the whole world,

In the royal court: sickness and emptiness

Without wondrous faith in the Son of God;

Among the soothsayers; the cursed darkness

Without the knowledge of the Creator and the heavenly world.

The beauty of the flesh - a stumbling block,

Without God's love, faith and hoping

Therefore, Pherbutha totally sacrificed herself for Christ,

To the world she surrendered all, except her pure soul.

Her bodily cage, the tormentor crushed

But the living soul, he cannot enslave;

The cage [her body] was cut up; the soul to Paradise flees,

Into true freedom from false freedom.

The blood splattered upon the earth, and the body became earth,

And, in eternity, Pherbutha remained alive.