12th–13th century
Saint Neophytos the Recluse
Cypriot hermit and writer who founded the monastery near Paphos that bears his name.
Biography
Neophytos was born in 1134 near Lefkara in Cyprus. Rather than the marriage his parents had arranged, he chose monastic life at the Monastery of Saint John Chrysostom in Koutsovendis. In 1159, after a failed attempt to leave for ascetic centres in Asia Minor, he carved a hermitage into a cliff above Paphos, where he lived enclosed for forty years.
He was ordained priest in 1170, and a community of monks gathered around him. Among his writings is a chronicle of Richard the Lionheart's conquest of Cyprus in 1191, one of the few Greek sources for the event. He died in old age; the monastery he built still bears his name.