Anastasios of Agios Vlasios

Holy Hieromartyr Anastasios of Agios Vlasios, also called Gounaras, the furrier, was born at the end of the seventeenth or the beginning of the eighteenth century in the village of Agios Vlasios (formerly Souvliasi) in Thesprotia, near Igoumenitsa. He was a priest and received the crown of martyrdom in Constantinople on 8 July 1743.

His life is known from the Great Synaxaristes of the Orthodox Church, which tells mainly of his end. Nothing is known of his childhood and youth; one can only suppose that he received a pious upbringing. He chose the priesthood and served a church outside Constantinople. When Saint Constantine the Russian was martyred, a desire for martyrdom kindled in his heart, and each day he prayed that God would count him worthy to shed his own blood for the faith of Christ.

At that time there lived in Constantinople a Cypriot priest-⁠monk who, because of a sinful life, had been left by the grace of God and, at seventy years of age and blind, had denied Christ and embraced Islam. The Turks showered him with gifts and honours, and he went with the sheikhs to the Yeni Mosque and preached on its steps to those entering, receiving money. One day, on his way to the market, Anastasios saw him there and was deeply grieved, thinking from what height he had fallen. Turks passing by said to him, "Priest, do you see this sheikh? He too was a priest, and then he came to know our faith. Become a Turk too, and gain paradise." The saint answered them sharply but truthfully, in Turkish: he called them blind and deceived, and said that the one teaching them was an old man abandoned by God for his wickedness, who had abandoned his own faith.

The Turks rushed upon him and led him to the kadi and then to the vizier. The saint said the same words there, and they decided to exile him to the island of Chios. When he was about to be put on the ship, longing for martyrdom, he skilfully deceived them and was brought back before the vizier. He said, "Most glorious lord, why do you send me into exile? Because I told you the truth?" and boldly confessed the Lord Jesus Christ, true God, together with the Father and the Holy Spirit, and all His economy. Unable to bear the rebuke, by order of the mufti they beheaded him before the Yeni Mosque. It was 8 July 1743.

After his head was cut off, a heavenly light appeared at night over his holy relics. It was seen by the guards who watched them and by passers-⁠by, Christians and Turks alike, and all marvelled. The relics were then handed to the Christians for burial, but tradition did not preserve the place of his tomb or any further news of the saint. He is commemorated on 8 July, according to the calendar of the Church of Greece (new style).