Great Martyr John the New of Suceava, who suffered at Belgrade

John was a merchant from Trebizond on the Black Sea who travelled by ship with his goods. According to his Life, on one voyage he argued about faith with the ship's master, who then told the governor of Belgorod (Cetatea Albă, at the mouth of the Dniester) that John wished to renounce Christianity. Brought before the crowd and urged to honour the sun and stars, John refused. He was beaten with knotted sticks, then tied to a horse's tail and dragged through the streets, and on the way his head was struck off with a sword. Historians place his death between 1330 and 1340.

About seventy years later the Moldavian prince Alexander the Good had his relics brought to his capital, Suceava, where they lie today and where he is honoured as a patron of Moldavia.