The Holy Martyr Neophytus.

Commemorated January 21 in the Orthodox Christian Menaion

From the Prologue

Nicaean by birth, he was even in childhood a worker of great wonders by the grace of God. He brought forth water from rocks and raised his dead mother to life. Led by a white dove to Mount Olympus, he chased a lion out of its cave and himself settled there. He was martyred for Christ in Nicaea under Diocletian at the age of fifteen, refusing to deny Christ in any way. After beatings and imprisonment, he was thrown into fire, but God preserved him alive. Then he was put before a hungry lion, but the lion fawned around him. The saint recognised in this lion the same one in whose cave he had lived in asceticism, so he pardoned it and ordered it to return to the cave. Then Neophytus was run through with a spear and his soul went to the courts of the Lord.

From The Prologue From Ochrid by Bishop Nikolai Velimirovich
©1985 Lazarica Press, Birmingham UK