SerbianOrthodoxChurch.net
Romanus was a simple and illiterate villager from Carpenesion. Learning of the heroism and the glory of the martyrs of Christ, the
young Romanus yearned for martyrdom himself. He went to
Salonica, where he began to extol the Christian faith in the streets,
and to call Mahomet a writer of fables. The Turks tortured him ter-
ribly, then handed him over to a galley-captain. Christians rescued
him from the galley and sent him to the Holy Mountain, where
Romanus became a monk under the famous Starets Acacias. But he
still yearned for martyrdom for the sake of Christ. With the blessing
of his starets, he went to Constantinople, pretended to be a fool and
began to lead a dog about the streets. When asked why, Romanus
replied that he fed that dog as Christians fed Turks. The Turks
threw him into a dry well, where he lived without bread for forty
days. They then took him out and executed him. Light streamed
from his body for three days, after which an Englishman took it to
England. But a monk soaked a towel in his blood, and that towel is
kept to this day in the monastery of Docheiariou. This glorious sol-
dier of Christ suffered in 1694.
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