The life of St Pancratius of Taormina
Left without his parents, Pancratius withdrew to a cave near the Black Sea to live in prayer and silence. There the apostle Peter found him and brought him first to Antioch and then toward Sicily, where Paul was then preaching.
The two apostles together consecrated him bishop of Taormina, a small city on Sicily's eastern coast, making him one of the earliest bishops planted directly by the apostles themselves. In Taormina he preached, tore down the pagan idols, and within a month had built a church for his growing flock, so that in time nearly the whole city turned to Christ. His success drew enemies among those who resisted the new faith, and in the end they turned on him and killed him by stoning. The Church counts him among the hieromartyrs, and keeps his memory both in July and, in some calendars, in February. The detailed story told of him is the Church's ancient legendary account rather than a contemporary record, though Pancratius himself is named in early martyrologies, so his veneration as bishop and martyr of Taormina is old and genuine even where the particulars cannot be independently verified.
