Constantine of Sofia

Holy Martyr Constantine of Sofia is one of the nine martyrs of Sofia, commemorated on 21 May (new style, by the calendar of the Bulgarian Church). He was a youth of fifteen or sixteen from the Tran or Pirot region, a servant in Sofia to Aromanian merchants. They accused him of stealing their money, and then the Turks tortured him and wanted to make him become Muslim so that his guilt would be forgiven.

Constantine stood firm in the faith, which angered the Turks: they cut him down with a yatagan and threw his body into the field as carrion for dogs and eagles. The Bulgarians of Sofia learned of the crime, took the body and buried it, around 1737. In time people from all around Sofia, Tran and Pirot came to venerate his grave, and the young martyr eased the sick and the childless.

The manuscript of his life was found in the church of the Nativity of the Mother of God at Samokov, called Belova. His likeness was painted in the church of the Lozen monastery near Sofia by the painter Nikola Obrazopisov, in 1869.