Hieromartyr Hypatius, Bishop of Gangra, was bishop of the city of Gangra in Paphlagonia (Asia Minor). In the year 325 he participated in the First Ecumenical Council at Nicea, at which the heresy of Arius was anathematized.
Born in Cilicia, he was bishop in the town of Gangra. At the First Ecumenical Council, he was lauded on all sides for his devout life and miracles. The Emperor Constantius ordered a bust of Hypatius to be made in the saint's lifetime, and he kept this bust in his palace as a weapon against every adverse power.
When St Hypatius was returning in 326 from Constantinople to Gangra, followers of the schismatics Novatus and Felicissimus fell upon him in a gorge and he was pushed off the road into the mud. The heretics also ran him through with swords and spears. On top of that, a woman of that company threw a rock at his head, and the saint thus finished his earthly course. But this woman suddenly went insane, and, taking the same rock, began to strike herself with it. When they brought her to the grave of St Hypatius and prayed for her, she was healed by Hypatius's compassionate spirit and spent the rest of her life in repentance and prayer
Like the Protomartyr Stephen, St Hypatius prayed for his murderers. The murderers hid his body in a cave, where a Christian who kept straw there found his body. Recognizing the bishop's body, he hastened to the city to report this, and the inhabitants of Gangra piously buried their beloved archpastor.
After his death, the relics of St Hypatius were famous for numerous miracles, particularly for casting out demons and for healing the sick.
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