Hieromartyr Pancratios, Bishop of Taoromina in Sicily

Pancratius is known from a Life written long after his time, so its details are tradition rather than record. It tells that he was from Antioch, was taken as a boy to Jerusalem to see Jesus, and later lived as a hermit in Pontus until the apostle Peter found him. Peter and Paul then made him bishop of Taormina in Sicily.

According to his Life, idols fell and a pagan temple collapsed at his arrival, and he baptized the governor. When a hostile commander named Aquilinus marched on Taormina, the bishop met him with a cross and two icons, and the attackers, it says, were seized with confusion and turned on each other. He is said to have been stoned to death by pagans of the region. He is remembered as of the 1st century.