New Martyr John the New of Suceava

John the New of Suceava was a merchant of Trebizond in Asia Minor who, by tradition, suffered martyrdom in the fourteenth century at Cetatea Alba (Belgorod, also called Akkerman, now Bilhorod-Dnistrovskyy in Ukraine) for refusing to deny Christ. He is numbered among the Great Martyrs and the New Martyrs, and is one of the most venerated saints of Moldavia, where his relics rest at Suceava. He is commemorated on June 2, with the translation of his relics kept on June 24.

The synaxarion relates that John was devout and firm in his Orthodoxy and followed his father's trade as a merchant. On a voyage across the Black Sea he fell into repeated discussions of the faith with a ship's master, described in some accounts as a Venetian named Reiz, who was not Orthodox. Bested in argument and bearing a grudge, the man denounced John to the ruler of the city, falsely reporting that the merchant wished to abandon Christianity. The accounts differ on the exact year of his death, giving dates as early as about 1330 and as late as the fifteenth century; the earlier date is generally preferred, with John about thirty years old.