Anastasios Paneras

Holy New Martyr Anastasios Paneras was a young man of twenty from Asomatoi on the island of Lesbos, and he suffered in 1816 (according to some sources 1819) at Kasaba in Asia Minor together with Demetrios Begiazis, eighteen years old, from Agiasos, also in Lesbos. They may have been relatives.

At Kasaba they were basket-⁠makers, but at the same time they preached the Gospel to the Christians living under the Turkish yoke. For this the Turks seized them, imprisoned them and tortured them terribly. Because they went on confessing and preaching their faith, they were hanged under a plane tree. A great church was built in Agiasos in the name of the two saints, where their memory is kept on 11 August, according to the calendar of the Church of Greece (new style).