Venerable Nikon Metanoeite of Crete

IMPORTANT IDENTITY CLARIFICATION: the hypothesis of membership in the group of "Ten Martyrs of Crete" (Theodulus, Saturninus, Euporus, Gelasius, Eunikianos, Zoticus, Pompeius, Agathopous, Basilides, Evaristus) was checked — Nikon does not appear among them. The only saint consistently and specifically connected to Crete under the name Nikon is Nikon Metanoeite ("Repent Ye"), whose formal epithet in the sources is precisely "Metanoeite," not literally "of Crete," though his missionary labor on Crete created a close association with the island. Separate from him is St. Nikon of Sicily (a bishop-hieromartyr executed with 199 companions in Sicily under Decius, feast March 23/April 5, d. 251) — a saint connected to Sicily, not Crete, unrelated to this card. The previously listed contaminated date list has been replaced with his own correct date.

Venerable Nikon, born Nikita, was born into a wealthy Armenian landowning family in Pontus Polemoniacus. He entered the Chrysopetra monastery and spent about a decade there before becoming an itinerant preacher, earning the epithet "Metanoeite" for his constant call to repentance. After the Byzantine reconquest of Crete from the Arabs in 961, he preached on the island for about 20 years (including 7 years of intensive missionary work), converting the population and instructing former Muslims in the faith.

He later moved to mainland Greece, settling around 970 in Lacedaemon (Sparta), where he founded a church dedicated to the Savior, the Theotokos, and Martyr Kyriaki, with an attached monastic community. He performed numerous healings and miracles, advised local Byzantine officials, and became the patron of Sparta and the Mani peninsula. He died around 998–1000; his relics were later said to exude myrrh.

His feast is kept on November 26/December 9.