DEMETRIAN OF KHYTRI, ST.

Bishop and national saint of Cyprus; b. village of Sykai, Diocese of Khytri, Cyprus, c. 830; d. c. 911. He was married very young, and after the death of his bride he took the monastic habit at the age of 16 in the monastery of St. Anthony in his native town. He was ordained by Eustathios, bishop of Khytri, a see in central cyprus, the exact location of which is uncertain today. The bishop would have kept him in his service, but Demetrian, scorning worldly pursuits, begged leave to return to his cloister, where he remained for 40 years leading an exemplary life and where he was eventually elected abbot. When Eustathios was translated to the metropolitan See of Salamis (c. 885), he named Demetrian to succeed him at Khytri. The monk felt compelled to accept, and he served as bishop for the next 25 years. The last days of his episcopate were clouded by one of the periodic Arab invasions of Cyprus, which resulted in the sack of Khytri, and the 80-year-old bishop himself undertook a journey to baghdad to seek the ransom of some of his people from the caliph. There is a nearly contemporary life of the saint in Greek by a cleric of his diocese.

Feast: Nov. 6.

Bibliography: Greek vita, ed. h. grÉgoire in Byzantinische Zeitschrift 16 (1907) 204–240. Acta Sanctae Sedis Nov. 3:298–308. r. jenkins, Mélanges Henri Grégoire (Brussels 1949) 1:267–275. h. delehaye, "Saints de Chypre," Analecta Bollandiana 26 (1907) 243, 249, 253, 267.

[b. j. comaskey]