St Tryphon

Saint Tryphon was a young man of Phrygia in Asia Minor who was granted from childhood the power to heal the sick and cast out demons. He saved his village from a plague of locusts by his prayer and became famous across the Empire when he freed the daughter of Emperor Gordian from an evil spirit. He asked nothing of those he helped except faith in Jesus Christ. Under the persecution of Decius he boldly confessed Christ, endured terrible tortures, and received the crown of martyrdom around 250. In Russia he is honored as a heavenly protector of Moscow, where a falconer of Ivan the Terrible built a church to him after the saint helped him find the Tsar's lost falcon, and icons show him with a falcon on his arm. Orthodox Christians pray to Saint Tryphon for honest work, and Greek vinedressers sprinkle their vines with holy water on his feast.

Russian piety prays to him above all for work and keeps the falconer legend (church of St Tryphon in Naprudnoye, Moscow). Greeks and Bulgarians honor him as patron of vinedressers and farmers, sprinkling the vines with holy water on 1 February. Popular Russian claims that he helps in finding a spouse or against rodents could not be confirmed from a cited source and are left out (his life speaks of locusts/insects).