Niphon, Bishop of Constantia on the island of Cyprus, was a fourth-century hierarch best known through a detailed Life that centers on his early dissipation, his protracted repentance, and the gift of spiritual discernment he received in monastic struggle. According to that tradition he was born in Paphlagonia and educated at Constantinople; though a gentle and devout child who attended the church services, he fell in his youth into a prodigal and sinful manner of life. He is commemorated on December 23.
The Life relates that Niphon was roused from his disorder when a friend, gazing at his face, remarked that it had grown dark, 'black, like that of an Ethiopian.' Stricken by the words, he began to entreat the Mother of God for help. After long prayer he saw the face of the Theotokos on her icon shine radiantly and smile upon him; thereafter, the tradition holds, the icon would turn away when he sinned and show mercy again when he repented. Healed of an illness through her intercession and restored to the Holy Mysteries, he was tonsured a monk and gave himself to intensified ascetical labor.
Over years of struggle he was repeatedly assailed by demons but overcame them, and he received from God an unusual gift of discernment, by which—as his Life describes—he could perceive the angels and demons surrounding people as plainly as he saw the people themselves. The tradition also credits him with founding a church dedicated to the Theotokos at Constantinople and gathering others to the monastic life. Only late in life, already an old man, did he come to the episcopate.
Journeying to Alexandria, Niphon arrived while a delegation from Constantia was petitioning Patriarch Alexander to consecrate a new bishop, their Bishop Christopher having reposed. The Life recounts that the Apostle Paul appeared to the patriarch in a vision and directed him to consecrate the man who resembled the Apostle but was bald. Niphon, though reluctant, was ordained in succession deacon, priest, and bishop, and set out for his diocese. After governing his flock for only a short time he foretold his own death three days in advance; the tradition relates that Saint Athanasius the Great visited him, and that on his deathbed he was found worthy to behold the holy angels and a company of saints before his repose.
