Anastasios of Iviron

Anastasios of Iviron, with the secular name George Kritikos, from Imbros, where he was born in 1905, came young in 1923 to Iviron Monastery, where he was tonsured a monk in 1924, ordained deacon in 1925 and priest in 1933. Later he went to Athens, where he studied theology, medicine and music. In the war of 1940 he went to the Albanian front as a military priest and reserve captain. According to the reports of his superiors, he fought in the front line of fire, encouraging the soldiers. He gave heart to the discouraged, boldly taking risks, not fearing for his life, moved by self-⁠sacrifice. Another commander writes of him: "A priest with complete moral and spiritual formation, full of faith and patriotic enthusiasm, he was in the hardest moments always beside the soldiers, strengthening them in soul and sharing their toil and dangers, thus proving worthy of the military and, in general, national mission of the Greek." Later he helped the starving and desperate, especially children.

The end of his life, loving God and man, was martyrdom. He was seized by godless militiamen in his beloved church on 24 December 1944, just after he had finished the Divine Liturgy of Christmas Eve. A little later his body was found thrown on a secluded road like a heap of rubbish. A priest wrote to the Archdiocese of Athens: "The corpse bore all kinds of injuries and wounds, with the slash of the throat." The Lord of life and death received his martyric death on that Christmas above the precious gifts of the magi of Bethlehem: gold, frankincense and myrrh... He is venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization.