Acacius the Slipper-⁠maker

Holy Venerable Martyr Acacius the Slipper-⁠maker was a native of the village of Neochori, near Thessalonica, and was beheaded at Constantinople on 1 May 1816. The Serbian Church commemorates him on 1 May by the old calendar (14 May by the new).

With the baptismal name Athanasius, he had been given by his parents to a cobbler to learn the trade; the cobbler was a very harsh man and beat him every day for no reason. Athanasius, disillusioned, left him on Great Friday without saying anything to his parents. He wandered in great sadness until two Turkish women found him, who took him in and led him to the bey, to change his religion. The bey rejoiced at a Christian's conversion to Islam, had him circumcised and, liking the young man, decided to adopt him. The bey's wife at first showed him motherly love, but when he reached manhood she desired to lie with him, like the wife of Potiphar. With God's help Athanasius remained firm, and the Turkish woman, shamed, accused him to her husband of trying to violate her. They drove him out of the house, not daring to punish him more severely, and he returned to his family.

His parents' joy was great when they heard that he wished to renounce Islam; after a few days his mother advised him to go to the Holy Mountain and gain forgiveness there through repentance and a return to the bosom of Orthodoxy. She told him: "As you voluntarily renounced the Lord, so now you must voluntarily and bravely accept martyrdom for sweet Jesus." The son obeyed her and, with the blessing of the Athonite Fathers, went to Hilandar. After a time, on the advice of the elders there, he went to the community of Xenophontos, to the confessor Nicholas, who heard his confession, read him the prayers and anointed him with holy myrrh. He returned to Hilandar, and a year later went to the Iveron skete. After six months he longed to suffer martyrdom like the martyrs before him in that skete, under the guidance of the hieromonk Nikephoros. After he was tonsured a monk, with the Fathers' blessing, he went to Constantinople, where he was beheaded by the Turks on 1 May 1816. His head is kept at Saint Panteleimon Monastery.