Greek Sources

Home , Fantinus, Kitros, Kolindros, Pydna

CHAPTER 3 Greek Sources

The Life of St. Fantinus the Younger

St. Fantinus was a hermit (c. 902–967) who, for a while, lived as a monk in a monastery in Calabria. In the aftermath of Muslim attack that destroyed his monastery, Fantinus headed forth to Thessaloniki in the company of two disciples. He arrived in the city, after reaching the Peloponnese and passing through Athens and Larissa. In Thessaloniki, however, he fell ill and died soon after his arrival. Fantinus is known to have made a number of prophecies, the most important of which is that Larissa would one day fall into the hands of the “enemies,” most likely the Bulgarians. To be sure, the city had already been taken once by Bulgarians, namely under the reign of Symeon, shortly after his victory over the Byzantines in the Battle of Acheloos (917). However, Fantinus clearly had in mind a later event, one and the same attack on the city that, as Vasil Giuzelev has pointed out, must have happened between 965 (the year in which Fantinus visited Larissa) and 986 (the year in which the city was taken by Samuel). This attack is also mentioned in the Praise for St. Thomas of Thessaly, a text written in the 11th century. Elsewhere in the vita of St. Fantinus there is another mention of the deterioration of Bulgarian-Byzantine relations after 967. This is his third prophecy concerning the Bulgarian attack on Thessaly and the environs of Thessaloniki. The excerpts from the vita have been trans- lated into Bulgarian by Vasil Giuzelev.

The tribe of the Bulgarians desired to ravage these lands again. The governor, Duke Pediasimes, gripped with horrible fear, planned to burn down all the nearby places located outside the walls of the fortress. He had the same plans about our monastery, because it was situated outside the town. Yet Fantinus, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, told the governor: “Because the ethnarch is worried about his unpredictable fellow-countrymen, I am joining him. It is better for these citizens to keep the fruits that the invaders will otherwise ravage.” Seeing himself in a deadlock, the duke responded that he had no troops at his disposal. The great [saint] replied: “Do not worry about that, because they will not be destroyed by an armed force, but by a force from on high”. The duke took hope and soon not a small part of the Bulgarians perished. And we came to know that the prophecy of the saint had not been proved wrong …

The Bulgarian tribe captured a servant, who for a long time nourished unwavering faith in the saint. When he was chained in the fortress of Kalidros, his master unceasingly begged Fantinus to help the captive. One night, in the dungeon of the above-mentioned fortress, into which the prisoner had been thrown, the saint appeared to him and released him immediately from his chains. Then, as he took him by hand, he led him outside without either guardians, or other prisoners noticing them. Thus the saint took the prisoner away from the fortress of Kitros. And as he found a fast ship, he placed the prisoner in its hold. At midnight, the sailors sailed off and in the morning, they arrived in Thessaloniki. However, one of them went down to the hold and found the man asleep. Then all of the sailors took him out and worried, as they began to question him. As he started his story from the moment of his captivity, he continued thus: “As for the one, who at midnight rescued me from the chains of the pris- on and took me to you, he was a monk, with a large, scary-looking body, grey-haired, barefoot, and with very long beard.” As he said that, leaving everyone in bewilderment, he joyfully returned home. When his master heard that, he took him to the church of St. Fantinus. As the ex-prisoner, saw the image of the saint, he said: “It was this man who appeared to me and freed me from the heavy chains.”

Commentary: Vasil Giuzelev has provided a detailed analysis of the events mentioned in those excerpts from the Life of St. Fantinus. He compared this information to that from Kekaumenos’ detailed account of the Bulgarian-Byzantine relations at that time. According to Kekaumenos, the fortress of Kalidros (Kalindăr) was next to Lake Dojran (on the border between present-day Macedonia and Greece), while the fortress of Kitros, as evident from the text, was by the sea.1

Publications: Vasil Giuzelev, “Svedeniia za bălgarite v Zhitieto na sveti Fantino Mladi ot X v.,” Palaeobulgarica 36 (2012), no. 2, 31–39; Germaine Da Costa-Louillet, “Saints de Sicile et d’Italie méridionale aux VIIIe, IXe et Xe siècles,” Byzantion 29–30

1 This is most likely the present-day village of Kitros in the Pydna-Kolindros municipality of Central Macedonia (Greece) (translator’s note).