18th century
Saint John the Russian
Russian soldier captured in 1711 who lived as a slave in Prokopion in Cappadocia while keeping his faith; his relics are now kept at Prokopi on Euboea.
Biography
John was born around 1690 in a village in Little Russia. He was conscripted under Peter the Great and taken prisoner by the Tatars during the Russo-Turkish war of 1711, who sold him as a slave to an Ottoman officer in Prokopion, Cappadocia.
Though the Ottomans mocked him and pressed him to convert, he refused and kept his faith, working in his master's stable, which he turned into a place of prayer and fasting, and secretly taking communion each Saturday at a cave church. Over time he won his master's respect.
According to tradition, while his master was away in Mecca, he found in his locked room a dish of pilaf that John had sent through prayer, and the saint's reputation for holiness spread. He died in 1730; his relics are kept today at Prokopi on Euboea.