Athanasius Repanidiotis

Holy New Martyr Athanasius Repanidiotis (Athanasius of Lemnos) was from the village of Repanidi on the island of Lemnos, and died drowned in 1846, after returning to the Christian faith. He is commemorated locally, on Lemnos, on the second Saturday of July, at the Synaxis of All Saints of Lemnos.

After receiving an education, he went to become a monk on the Holy Mountain, at the Great Lavra. In the Revolution of 1821 he was captured and sent to Egypt, where he was sold as a slave to a Muslim lord, who made him a Muslim, circumcised him and married him to a Christian captive woman. He became a wealthy agha and lived secluded with his wife on a large estate. But three times he saw Saint Athanasius the Great in a vision, which opened his spiritual eyes. He asked his wife's forgiveness, left her a share of his wealth and returned to Athos, where he confessed and purified himself through great asceticism and much humility. During that time he lived in the cell of Saint Anthony in Karyes, today the Skete of Saint Andrew.

Then, after being anointed with chrism, he went to his native Lemnos and lived piously and in a manner pleasing to God. He gave part of his wealth to found schools for the Greeks and money for building churches, and the Greeks regarded him as a leader. When the Turks discovered that Athanasius had left Islam, after a trial they put him on a ship bound for Constantinople, but off the Hellespont they threw him into the sea, bound in chains, and drowned him. Thus he received the crown of martyrdom in 1846. His life has been preserved in an anonymous manuscript at Saint Panteleimon Monastery on Athos, discovered by Professor Apostolos Glavinas of the Theological School of the University of Thessaloniki.