NICETAS THE CONFESSOR

Saint Nicetas the Confessor was born in the northern Black Sea region of Asia Minor, called Paphlagonia around 763. His life says that he was a relative of the Empress Irina (797–802), who in 787 restored the veneration of icons at the VII Ecumenical Council in Nicaea. According to one of the legends, Nicetas represented her and the young emperor, the son of Irene Constantine VI (780–797), at the Council among secular persons. According to other sources at this time he was prefect of Sicily. This mission was unsuccessful, and at the age of fifty, in 813, he renounced the world. Emperor Michael I Rangabe (811–813), who soon lost power and also became a monk, permitted him to be abbot of one of the monasteries on the banks of the Golden Horn.

In 815, the new emperor Leo V resumed the persecution of icons, and the second period of iconoclasm began. Nicetas opposed the heretic ruler, but the latter did not dare to harm the confessor. Under the iconoclast emperor Theophilus (829–842), Nikita was expelled from the throne and wandered a lot, pursued everywhere. He died on October 6, 838, at the age of 75, apparently abandoned by everyone. According to the testimony of his life, healings began to occur from the relics of the saint. This posthumous testimony of holiness, by the power of grace, saved the saint from oblivion.

St Demetrius of Rostov in the Lives of the Saints writes that by that time Nicetas also was the bishop of the city of Chalcedon. According to other sources, Nicetas of Chalcedon (726–775) is another saint. He was also a confessor of faith but lived several decades earlier. The Orthodox liturgical calendar also preserves the memory of the third saint of the same name, Nicetas of Medikion (760–824). A contemporary of those events, he was an elder and abbot of the monastery, suffered cruelly from the iconoclasts, and also became a confessor of the faith.

The life of Saint Nicetas is a precious testimony to the persecution that befell those who honored the holy icons in the 8th–9th centuries during the period of Byzantine iconoclasm. In fact, this was the longest continuous persecution for faith in the entire history of the Ancient Church. The tragic fact was that the iconoclasts themselves, first of all, the emperors and the episcopate loyal to them, considered themselves devout Christians. They made a great mistake because they combined their convictions with hostility against ordinary believers, lay people and monastics.

Under the pretext of persecuting icons, they destroyed monasteries, sought to take possession of the property of the Church, and prohibited the creation of new ascetic communities. In this they somewhat prophetically pointed to the future Bolsheviks, who executed the clergy and faithful under the pretext of caring for the poor. The memory of the bitter time of persecution and the life of Saint Nicetas teach us not to replace the truth with evil intentions.