Office and Manner of Life
Niketas held the Byzantine office of chartoularios (chartolarios), an administrative post concerned with keeping records and writing letters. In Byzantine administration the chartoularios was a clerical official responsible for fiscal and administrative duties; the title derives from the Latin chartularius, connected to charta ("documents"), and is attested as an office from the early fourth century. Originally lowly clerks within Roman chanceries, chartoularioi rose in importance over time, serving by the seventh century as department heads in fiscal agencies and in provincial and military administration. This office situates Niketas within the ordinary bureaucratic life of the capital.
It is precisely this ordinariness that defines his title "the Hidden." According to the sources, living in the world amid the bustle of the city and practicing secret exploits of faith, he attained spiritual perfection while concealing his sanctity from those around him.
The Reconciliation of the Deacon and the Priest
The single narrative preserved about Niketas concerns a deacon named Sozon, who had quarreled with a priest before the priest's death and afterward sought reconciliation. An experienced Elder, guiding Sozon, gave him a letter and instructed him to deliver it to the first person he met at midnight at the church of Hagia Sophia.
The person Sozon encountered was Niketas, who received the letter and accepted the task, saying that it was beyond his own strength but that, with the prayers of the Elder who had sent Sozon, he would strive to accomplish it. When Niketas prayed at the doors of Hagia Sophia — by one account praying, "Lord, open to us the doors of Thy mercy" — the doors opened of their own accord, and Sozon saw that Niketas shone with a strange light.
The two then went to the Church of the Mother of God at Blachernae, whose doors likewise opened, revealing two rows of priests coming forth from the altar; among them was the deceased priest. Niketas mediated the reconciliation, instructing the dead priest, "Father, speak to your brother, and cease the enmity between you." The priest and the deacon embraced and were reconciled. Niketas attributed the miracle to the purity of his prayers and his trust in God. Afterward he became invisible to Sozon, who reported all that had happened to his spiritual father.
Veneration
No act or date of formal glorification is recorded; Niketas is venerated by immemorial Byzantine tradition, with no modern glorification documented. He is commemorated on September 9, though one source lists his feast on September 8. The hagiographic account is brief and undated, and the principal narrative sources cite no earlier written authorities for the vita.
