Damaskin of Athos

Holy Venerable Martyr Damaskin of Athos, in the world Diamandis, was an ascetic on Mount Athos and received the crown of martyrdom at Constantinople, by beheading, in the time of Ottoman rule. He is commemorated on 4 July, in the Synaxis of the Venerable Fathers of Athos.

He was born in the Galata quarter of Constantinople, in the parish of the church of the Mother of God Eleousa, and received from his parents, Kyriakos and Kyriaki, the name Diamantis. Orphaned young, he learned the trade of tailor. For some offence he was seized by the Turks and, to escape trial, renounced the Christian faith. After a time he repented and withdrew to the Holy Mountain, where he was tonsured a monk at the Great Lavra, with the name Damaskin. For twelve years he struggled under the guidance of an elder, weeping over his denial and wearing himself out in strict asceticism. He considered the sin so grave that he decided to atone for it by martyrdom. He told this to the former patriarch of Constantinople Dionysius III, who was living in retirement at the Great Lavra, and he blessed him for this labour.

Damaskin came to Constantinople, communed of the Holy Mysteries in the church of Saint Nicholas in Galata and, so as not to bring the anger of the Ottoman authorities upon the monks of the Holy Mountain, as had happened after the killing of the new martyrs Gabriel (1676) and Cyprian (1679), put on lay clothes. Coming to Hagia Sophia, turned into a mosque, he began to pray, making the sign of the Holy Cross, but the Muslims took him for a madman. For several days he confessed Christ in the streets of the capital, and the Turks only called him mad. Only when he began to revile Islam in the palace of the grand vizier did they beat him and drive him out. In the end he came to the same mosque in which he had once denied Christ and, rebuking the Muslims, was seized and taken to the judge, then to the vizier, who sentenced him to death. He was beheaded before the gates of the patriarchal residence at the Phanar. His relics were buried in the monastery of the Mother of God on the island of Halki.

His life was written by I. Cariophyllus (died 1693) and then put into modern Greek by the hieromonk Jonah Kausokalyvites (died 1765). It was included in the New Martyrologion of Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite. Archbishop Chrysostom of Athens mistakenly calls him Damian.