Athanasius of Attalia

Holy New Martyr Athanasius of Attalia (Antalya) lived at Smyrna in the seventeenth century and received the crown of martyrdom in the year 1700. He is commemorated on 7 January by the old calendar (20 January by the new). The seventeenth century and the year 1700 do not fit together on their own: the year 1700 falls at the end of the seventeenth century and not the eighteenth.

He was a poor and simple man, but a convinced Christian, rich in faith and wise through the Spirit of God. One day, without wishing it, he entered into a religious dispute with a Turk. The Turk was educated and adroit with words, but Athanasius strove with all his might to show and affirm the truth and superiority of the Christian faith over Islam. Then they parted.

On the next day Athanasius was summoned to trial. The Turk presented himself as his accuser. The judge called on Athanasius to renounce Orthodoxy and accept Islam, as he himself had supposedly said to his companion the day before. Athanasius answered that he would sooner receive a thousand deaths than renounce the faith of Christ. For this he was condemned to death and beheaded in the year 1700, at Smyrna. His holy relics were buried in the church of Saint Paraskeva in Smyrna.