Hieromartyr Phocas, Bishop of Sinope

The Hieromartyr Phocas led a virtuous Christian life from his youth in the city of Sinope on the southern shore of the Black Sea (Pontus). He was made Bishop of Sinope, became renowned for the gift of healing and casting out demons, and converted many pagans to Christ.

During the persecution of Emperor Trajan (98-117), the city's governor tried to force the hierarch to renounce Christ; after cruel tortures he was locked in an excessively heated bathhouse, where he died a martyr. His relics were translated from Sinope to Constantinople around 403-404.

A NOTE ON THE NAME COINCIDENCE: under the name "Phocas of Sinope," the Church venerates two different saints, often confused due to their shared city and coinciding calendar date of September 22/October 5 — Bishop Phocas (this entry, titled "hieromartyr") and Martyr Phocas the Gardener, a modest market-gardener who fed the poor from his own labor, to whom soldiers sent to execute him unknowingly came for a night's lodging — according to tradition, on learning of their mission he hospitably received them, dug his own grave, and revealed himself to them the next morning before accepting death by the sword. It is Phocas the Gardener who is traditionally venerated as the patron of sailors (Cape Ai-Foka in Crimea is named for him), though this veneration is often mistakenly transferred to Bishop Phocas as well.