Euthymius

Venerable Martyr Euthymius was a new martyr, born in Demetsana in the Peloponnese, who confessed Christ at Constantinople and received martyrdom by the sword on 22 March 1814, after having once denied the faith. His head is kept at the Russian Monastery of Saint Panteleimon on Athos.

In the world he was Eleutherios, the youngest son of Panagiotis and Maria. After school in Demetsana he went with his brother John to Constantinople to study at the Patriarchal Academy, and later to Iași, where his father and brothers had business. Desiring to become a monk on Athos, he was stopped by the Russo-⁠Turkish war at Bucharest, where he gave himself to a life of pleasures. On the way to Athos, travelling with some Muslims, he accepted Islam and was circumcised, taking the name Reschid. Soon his conscience began to torment him, and those around him noticed the change and kept him under watch. Seen with a cross, he was denounced to the master of the house, but the master spared him, thinking it too early for him to part with Christian habits. At Constantinople, the master tried to keep him with costly gifts, but Eleutherios prayed that God would help him escape. At the first opportunity he fled, and with the help of the Russian embassy he boarded a ship for Athos. At the Great Lavra he was baptized again and received into the Church and became a monk, with the name Euthymius.

Reading the New Martyrologion of Saint Nicodemus the Hagiorite, he wished to wash away the sin of denial with the blood of martyrdom. He went to Constantinople with the monk Gregory, arriving on 19 March 1814. On Palm Sunday he received Communion, put on Muslim clothes and went to the house of the grand vizier Rusud Pasha, holding palm branches in his hand. He declared that he was an Orthodox Christian and ready to die for Christ, reviled Islam and trampled the turban underfoot, appearing drunk or mad to the vizier. Having convinced him that he was neither drunk nor mad, he was thrown into a dark cell and put in chains. After a few hours the vizier tried to bend him with flattery and promises, but Euthymius answered boldly that the Muslim religion rests on lies and that he would never again deny Christ. He was beaten and imprisoned again; after three hours, asked whether he had changed his mind, he said: "There is only one true faith, and it is that of Orthodox Christians." The vizier ordered him killed with the sword.

The Saint asked to receive death with his arms open and went gladly to the place of execution, with the cross in his right hand and the palm branches in his left. He turned to the east, gave thanks to God and prayed for his family and friends, kissed the cross, knelt and bowed his head. The executioner struck, but did not succeed in cutting off his head. At the second blow, seeing that he could not, he cut the martyr's throat with a knife. He was killed at midday on 22 March 1814. He is commemorated on 22 March and, in other calendars, on 1 May.