Hieromartyr Patriarch Gregory V of Constantinople

Commemorated on April 10.

During that Lent, jailings and executions were common. One of the Patriarch's friends advised him to flee from Constantinople to the Morea. Saint Gregory replied: "I have a premonition that the fish of the Bosphorus will eat my body, but I will die calmly, for the sake of of saving my nation."

On Holy Pascha, April 10, 1821, the Patriarch was seized at 10:00 A.M. and hanged at the gate of the Patriarchate, and then his body was thrown into the sea. That gate has remained shut ever since.

Greek sailors noticed the place where the Hieromartyr's body was abandoned, and placed it on a ship from Kephalonia under the command of Captain Macri Sklavos, and then it was taken to Odessa under the Russian flag. The Hierarch's relics were buried in the Greek church of the Holy Trinity on June 19, 1821. Patriarchal vestments were sent from Moscow for the Saint's relics, as well as a mitre and a cross, which had belonged to His Holiness Patriarch Nikon (1652-1658). The Hieromartyr Gregory V of Constantinople, held the See of Constantinople three times (1797-1799, 1806-1808, 1819-1821).

In 1871, at the request of the Greek government, permission was granted to transfer Patriarch Gregory's relics from Odessa to Athens for the celebration of the fiftieth anniversary of Greek independence. A special Service was composed in Athens in honor of the Hierarch, whose martyrdom heralded the triumph of Christianity in Greece.

The Hieromartyr Gregory was glorified as a Saint in 1921. The scroll on his Icon reads: "For freedom Christ has set us free; stand fast therefore, and do not be entangled again with the yoke of slavery" (Galatians 5:1).