What is presented here is the minimal information that we get from the Cypriot chronicler Leontos Machairas, some information from the Saint's handwritten devine service, and from some of his miracles from murals that are painted in his hermitage in the village of Potamia and which hermitage you can see in the photograph above. His icon is hard to find and is presented in the internent for the first time as is the biography of the Saint himself.
The handwritten devine service of the Saint appears to have been copied by a "humble Ioannis" on the 16th of November in the year 1780, from other older handwritten pages of the Saint's devine service. Thus, through this successive coping, certain historical elements have survived about this Saint.
It is unknown where Saint Sozomenos of Potamia was born and in which year. It appears however that he loved Christ from a young age, and abandoned secular life, following the life of a monk. Later, during the occupation of Palestine from the Arabs, he left from the place where he lived as a monk- hermit (perhaps in the desert of Jordan or in the desert of Syria) and with an escort of 300 other Christians, he landed in Cyprus.
Since Sozomenos was a peaceful and a desert loving man, he searched to find a deserted and a quiet from noise place, and thus found his way up until the village of Potamia, and to the north of this village he dug and carved out his hermitage into a sandy but hard rock that is found in the region, and which survives up to our days. And thus, after the Saint found shelter, he began to put his energy in the fight for an ascetic life. With fasting, night prayers, sleeping on the ground and other prayers, but also with the grace of Christ, he overcame his passions, and through his patience and his purity, he became worthy to have divine powers. Powers to cure the sick, to turn away the bad spirits, to clean people from leprosy, and to cure many other illnesses. For this reason, those that were cured by him, named him a miracle maker and made him famous all around this part of the island. And thus, the Christians, and not only them, visited him, and he cured the illnesses of their body and their soul. He taught them and advised them to live in penitence and in God's ways, avoiding sins. Thus, the Saint lived a life similar with that of Saint Anthony the Great, and from the many miracles that he made, crowds of people reached to his cave in order to be cured, to be taught by his God respecting words, but also from curiosity to see his person.
After Saint Sozomenos lived as a hermit in the cave of Potamia, and was purified and was perfected in virtues, and after he acquired healing and other powers from God and became a miracle maker, he left the world for his beloved Christ. The grave of the Saint is found in the left, at the depth of the cave which he dug out himself.
In his cave exist murals that were painted between the eleventh and twelfth century, up to the beginning of the sixteenth century. In these murals, four scenes from the miracles of the Saint are presented. These miracles were made for Christians who asked for his help, perhaps while the Saint was still alive, or even after his death. In the first scene, the Saint is presented outside a church with a bishop's staff in his left hand, while with his right hand he blesses those that came asking for his help. The scene is accompanied by the sign "Saint Sozomenos healing the sick". In the other three scenes the Saint is depicted curing those who asked for his help, and the following signs are accompanied in these scenes: "Saint Sozomenos curing those who have fever". In another scene it is written: "Saint Sozomenos makes the one who is in the ground stand up". In the last scene, he cures a woman with the sign: "The sick woman drinks from the holy water of the Saint". Most murals were destroyed by fanatic Turks who especially destroyed the faces of Saints from disrespect and with much fury.
Holy relics of Saint Sozomenos survived up to the fifteenth century, because Machairas reports in his Chronicle that Patriarch Ignatios of Antioch came to Cyprus in 1340 for the purpose of confronting the locust by religious means. For this reason he made a Cross and he put in it part of the Holy Cross and Divine Bread from Great Thursday and relics of 46 Saints, among these also relics of Saint Sozomenos. Next to the village of Potamia, there is the abandoned from 1964 as a result of the bi-communal conflicts, village of Ayios (Saint) Sozomenos which took its name from the Saint. In the village there is a church dedicated to Saint Sozomenos which you can see in the photo below.
The memory of Saint Sozomenos of Potamia is celebrated on the 21st of November while the memory of Saint Sozomenos of Karpasia is celebrated on the 20th of November.
