Gabriel of Cairo

Holy New Martyr Gabriel of Cairo was a very learned young man, of pious parents, who suffered in Egypt on 18 October 1522, together with Kyrmidoles, his companion in struggle. Both were about twenty-⁠five years old.

They were slandered before the emir of Egypt, Khair Bey, as having thrown rubbish into a mosque. Led in chains to the government house, they were asked to accept Islam to escape torture, but they steadfastly confessed Christ and remained unshaken before the judge too, in spite of flatteries, enduring terrible torments. Kyrmidoles was put to death with knives and stones, and Gabriel was beheaded.

The Turks twice threw their relics into the fire, reduced them to ash and scattered them. Only the head of the martyr Gabriel was preserved. A service to the saints is found in codex 379 of the Patriarchal Library of Cairo. The saints are commemorated on 18 October, by the church calendar of the Church of Greece; in 2020, on their day, Patriarch Theodore II of Alexandria celebrated the Liturgy of Saint Mark at the place of their martyrdom and burial, in the Monastery of Saint George in Old Cairo.