Life
According to the surviving account, Nicholas was born around 1500 in the hamlet of Ichthys, also called Psari, in the prefecture of Corinth, to parents named John and Kalli. When he was twelve years old his parents died, and the orphaned boy left his home with other young men, traveling to Selybria, a town described as about a day's journey from Constantinople. There he entered the household of a prominent citizen as a valet.
The sources describe him as a devout man who kept the commandments with zeal. He later married and raised children in the Orthodox tradition. He worked as a fruit seller on Selybria's main street and is remembered for ministering to the poor and distributing alms.
Martyrdom
His martyrdom is dated to 1554, in the thirty-fourth regnal year of Sultan Suleyman I, when a prefect named Sinan governed Constantinople. According to the account, resentment of his commercial success led to his arrest. Brought before the prefect, he confessed his Christian faith and rejected the demand to renounce it.
The sources relate that he was tortured with pomegranate branches and imprisoned, but refused offers of conversion. He was paraded publicly through the city wearing chains and exposed to flames in the hippodrome; when he could no longer stand, his head was severed with a sword.
Rediscovery and Veneration
The memory of Nicholas was preserved in a manuscript composed by his contemporary, the Subdeacon Damaskenos the Studite of Thessaloniki, who later became Bishop of Rendini. The manuscript contained a liturgical service, a synaxarion, and a sermon in his honor.
In 1930, Metropolitan Ezekiel of Thessaliotis discovered this manuscript at the deserted Monastery of the Holy Trinity on Mount Pindos. He published the first Greek edition in Athens that same year, with a later reprint appearing in Corinth in 1963. Through this recovery Nicholas became known as a newly-revealed New Martyr. He is venerated as the patron saint of the village of Psari.
