TIKHON OF AMATHUS

On June 29 (16), the Church honors the memory of St. Tikhon of Amathus (+425). The saint was a bishop, miracle worker and evangelist of faith in opposition to paganism. He is one of the prophetic saints, in whom the grace of church service was combined with an abundance of supernatural gifts.

According to life, Tikhon’s parents were not rich. However, they raised him in the Christian faith and taught him to read the Scriptures. Already at a young age he perceived the words of sacred texts literally. So, one day, when the poor came to the bread shop of his father, who was a baker, Tikhon began to distribute bread to everyone, depending on his desire. In response to his parent’s indignation, the saint referred to the Gospel he had read, and his father’s storerooms inexplicably turned out to be overflowing with wheat.

Another time, already being a minister of the Church, at the sight of discarded grape branches, his heart was filled with Gospel images. Filled with mercy for God’s creation, in prayer he asked to give them life and make them fruitful. Subsequently, on the basis of this story, a pious tradition developed on the day of memory of Tikhon to celebrate the Eucharist with wine that came from the vine he planted. The image of an elderly saint planting grape branches “in the warm earth” is like what Bulat Okudzhava sang about in his song a millennium and a half later.

In popular piety, Saint Tikhon is considered the patron saint of viticulture. In theological perception, the image of Tikhon’s holiness is akin to St Nicholas of Myra and another saint of that glorious era, St. Spyridon of Cyprus, who lived about a century earlier. In 2024, the memory of Saint Tikhon significantly coincides with the last day, called the Leavetaking of Pentecost. Thus, the succession of holiness testifies to the constantly reborn breath of the Holy Spirit in the Churches.

Having lost his parents, Tikhon considered that the property inherited from them would burden him and distributed everything to the poor. Feeling a calling to serve the church, he became a reader and then a deacon. The great Cypriot saint of the time, and one of the Fathers of the Church, Epiphanius of Cyprus (310–403), ordained Tikhon bishop of the city of Amathus, the ruins of which are located near modern Limassol. This place has been known since ancient times as one of the centers of worship of Aphrodite.

The ruins of Amathus are now located near modern Limassol, and one of the nearby villages is named after St. Tikhon. A church was erected over his tomb, which became a place of pilgrimage. Two centuries after the death of the saint, here in Amathus, the Patriarch of the Alexandrian Church, Saint John the Merciful (556-619), reposed in the Lord. Then the Persians captured Egypt. Extermination awaited the Orthodox believers. The Patriarch was on his way from Alexandria to Constantinople to seek help for Egyptian Christians. One of the legends says that the life of Saint Tikhon was written by the hand of the great merciful saint.