George

Holy New Martyr George was a priest in the village of Gergeri and was killed in the church while celebrating the Divine Liturgy, on 25 March 1828, the feast of the Annunciation, together with twelve other faithful. His name was George Kyriakidis.

While the Liturgy was being celebrated in the church of the Transfiguration at Gergeri, savage Ottomans entered with drawn swords. The terrified congregation fled, but twelve men stayed in the church beside the priest George to defend him. The Ottomans butchered the priest and the twelve. A scholar, Menelaos Parlamas, citing notes of Stephen Nikolaidis, says that 1,300 Turks came unexpectedly to the village, found about fifty Greeks in the church, killed twelve of them together with the priest in his sacred vestments, and took five women captive.

The commemoration of the saints is kept each year on the Sunday of the Myrrhbearers (the first time on 26 April 2015), because 25 March is a feast of the Mother of God and also a day of national celebration. The service of hymns was written by Metropolitan Cyril of Rhodes.