Great Martyr Phanourios of Rhodes

IMPORTANT CAVEAT ABOUT THE SOURCE'S NATURE: the vita of the Great Martyr Phanourios is not based on written historical documents. The sole source of information about him is a large icon of an unknown warrior-martyr with 12 scenes depicting his martyrdom, and a partially preserved inscription bearing his name, discovered in the ruins of a destroyed church on the island of Rhodes. The find was brought to Metropolitan Nilus of Rhodes (Diasporinos), whose documented episcopal tenure was 1355-1369, placing the event in the mid-to-late 14th century (during the period of Hospitaller rule over the island, 1309-1522). Metropolitan Nilus, according to tradition, interpreted the scenes and composed a description of the saint's life and sufferings based on them — meaning the entire surviving "biography" of Phanourios is a later reconstruction from iconography, not a retelling of an ancient written source. According to this reconstruction, Phanourios was a young soldier seized for confessing the Christian faith, brought to trial before pagan authorities, subjected to a series of torments (stoning, fire, wild beasts, and other tortures depicted in the scenes) and ultimately put to a martyr's death. Lacking reliable data about the era in which he lived, modern researchers tentatively place the presumed martyrdom in the period of the early persecutions of Christians, though this remains a supposition rather than an established fact. Today the Great Martyr Phanourios is one of the most venerated saints in Greece, patron of those who find lost things and the lost themselves; in his honor a special cake called "fanouropita" is baked and distributed with a prayer for finding something lost or for the repose of the petitioner's deceased relatives. His memory is kept on August 27/September 9.