The life of St Nicetas the Goth
In those years the Goths were divided and at war with themselves, one prince named Athanaric set against Christians and the other favoring them, and when the pagan prince was for a time driven out, the Christians among the Goths had some years of peace, during which Nicetas preached and lived simply and brought many to believe.
Athanaric came back with an army, the fighting began again, and he turned his hatred loose on the Christians. Nicetas, who had become a man the Christian Goths looked to, stood before him and called him godless and cruel to his face, and told the faithful not to be afraid to die for it. He was seized and tortured at length, and through it he kept an icon of the Mother of God hidden under his robe, which she herself had given him for his comfort. At the end they burned him, and the fire did not mark his body. A friend named Marianus carried his relics away by night into Cilicia and built a church for them there.
