[4] Catholic tradition states that he was a gardener who lived at Sinope, on the Black Sea, who used his crops to feed the poor and aided persecuted Christians.

[3] The name Phocas seems to derive from the Greek word for "seal" (phoke/φώκη), which may explain his patronage of sailors and mariners.

When the ship came into port, the money was distributed among the poor, in thanksgiving to their benefactor for their successful voyage.

This tradition may be connected to a similar practice among sailors in the Baltic Sea of giving food offerings to an invisible sprite known as the Klabautermann.

[7] Phocas is mentioned in W. H. Auden's poem Horae Canonicae, Sext I, verse 6, 2nd line.