Ithaca, Greece, April 11, 2022
Photo: orthodoxianewsagency.gr
A hierarchical Divine Liturgy was celebrated yesterday at Panagia Kathariotissa Monastery on the Greek island of Ithaca to celebrate the glorification among the saints of the Ethnomartyr Metropolitan Eugenios of Anchialos.
The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece canonized 52 saints during its July session last year, including seven hierarchs who were martyred in April 1821 together with Patriarch Gregory V. Among them was Met. Eugenios, whose glorification was celebrated by Metropolitan Dorotheos of Syros and Metropolitan Theophilos of Lefkas and Ithaca, reports the Orthodoxia News Agency.
The Synod’s act of canonization of St. Eugenios was read out during the service, which was attended by a number of local officials and public figures.
The icon of the new saint was also solemnly brought out and placed in the midst of the church for the veneration of the faithful.
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St. Eugenios was born in Ithaca on January 27, 1752. He studied at an ecclesiastical school in Smyrna, where he was ordained. During the second Patriarchy of St. Gregory V, he was elected Metropolitan of Plovdiv, but remained in that position for a short time due to the persecution of the Turks.
By the beginning of the Greek Revolution in 1821, he was serving in Anchialos. Though the Patriarchate renounced the Revolution, a few metropolitans, including St. Eugenios, refused to sign the corresponding document or to read it publicly when demanded by the Turks, for which he was arrested and imprisoned in Constantinople with several other detained hierarchs.
On the feast of Pascha, April 10, 1821, after the hanging of Patriarch Gregory V, the Turks also hanged St. Eugenios and the others at various spots throughout the city. St. Eugenios was hanged at the Galata Gate near the bridge of the same name.
Their bodies remained hanging for three days, and were dismembered, dragged, and dishonorably beaten in the streets by a Turkish mob, and were then thrown into the sea. Their bodies were recovered by pious Christians and buried in various places.
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