St. Polychronius the Hieromartyr (4th c.)

Polychronius was the son of a landowner, brought up to work and to pray. He hired himself out in the vineyards of a rich man, who marvelled at his labour and at how little of his wage he kept, and with that wage he built a church. He was ordained deacon and priest in Constantinople and taught his people the faith, and tradition counts him among those who defended the Creed against Arius at the First Ecumenical Council. The Arians could not bend him, so they killed him: they burst into his church as he served the Divine Liturgy and struck him down at the holy table, in the fourth century. In Cyprus the people of three villages in the north, occupied since 1974, Agios Nikolaos near Lefkoniko, Kalogrea and Trypimeni, keep him as their own, and Melanarga in the Karpas has his church. Feast: October 7.