Kerykos

According to his Vita, Saint Kerykos was martyred at a very young age in Tarsus, Cilicia, during the reign of emperor Diocletian, along with his mother Iulitta. His cult, either independent or associated with his mother's, spread widely and were considered protector saints and privileged mediators. In the present paper specific depictions of the saint are examined dating from the early Byzantine period in the Dodecanese. At the same time, issues of dedication contribute to the understanding of the diffusion of his cult. The foundation of a large church in the peninsula of Bozburun in Caria, near Cnidus, for which scanty information is available, was a decisive factor for the expansion of the cult in Asia Minor and the islands of the Southeastern Aegean. Moreover, the discovery and examination of a transcription of a now lost dedicatory inscription from the church in this presentation provides useful information as well as a terminus for the beginning of the cult in the region before the 6th century. The location of the church in the Rhodian Peraia, which constituted for many centuries the islands' hinterland, on the coast opposite Syme, very close to Chalki and Rhodes, suggests that it not only facilitated the spread of the cult but also served as the nucleus of its dissemination in the Dodecanese.