Christos of Ioannina

Christos of Ioannina was a hieromonk crucified by the Turks at Ioannina on 15 August 1823, the day of the Dormition of the Mother of God, because he had given courage to the Christians. He is honoured as a new hieromartyr and is commemorated on 15 August. He has no known canonization.

In August 1823 the Turkish militia in the region of Ioannina began a particularly harsh suppression of the Christians, ordered by Sultan Mahmud II. The hieromonk Christos comforted and strengthened the suffering Christians. For this he was arrested and beaten, and because he refused to give up his faith he was condemned to death.

On 15 August the Orthodox were celebrating the Dormition of the Mother of God, and the Turks chose this day for the execution. They also chose a manner that mocked the Passion of the Saviour: Father Christos was crowned with thorns, stripped and spat upon, and then nailed to a cross, set up beside the plane trees at Kalou Tzesme. As he expired the martyr prayed for his tormentors, who sat around and taunted him. At last one of the Turks pierced his side with a sabre, and he gave up his soul. Even in death they did not leave him in peace: some gypsies coated his body in tar and set it alight, so that it was consumed by the flames.

The event was recorded by the French diplomat and explorer François Pouqueville, formerly Napoleon's consul general at the court of Ali Pasha of Ioannina, in his work on the regeneration of Greece, published in Paris in 1824.