Concerning Spyridon: such holiness was found in this shepherd of sheep that he was judged worthy also to become a shepherd of people. He became bishop of Trimithous, one of the cities of Cyprus. Yet because of his great humility, even after becoming bishop he continued to tend sheep. Once thieves secretly entered his sheepfold in the middle of the night and tried to carry off the sheep. But God, who guarded the shepherd, also guarded the sheep, and by an invisible power the thieves were held bound at the fold. At dawn the shepherd came to his sheep and found the thieves with their hands bound behind their backs. He understood what had happened, prayed, and released them. After strongly admonishing them to seek their livelihood by righteous labor rather than unlawful deeds, he gave them a ram and sent them away, adding graciously, “So that it may not seem that you kept watch in vain.”
They also said that Abba Spyridon had a daughter, a virgin named Irene, who shared in her father’s piety. An acquaintance entrusted a precious ornament to her. To keep the deposit safer, she hid it in the ground; a little later she died. Afterward the man who had entrusted it came and, not finding the virgin, pressed her father Abba Spyridon, alternately tugging at him and begging him. The elder regarded the depositor’s loss as his own misfortune, so he went to his daughter’s tomb and prayed to God to show him, ahead of time, the promised resurrection. His hope did not fail. The virgin appeared alive again to her father and showed him the place where the ornament had been put; then she departed again. The elder took the deposit and returned it to its owner.