George the Athonite

Holy Martyr George the Athonite was born in Philadelphia, in a Christian family, and died in the year 1794, beheaded on 2 October.

Having reached full age, he left his homeland and settled in Karachasu, a place in the diocese of Heliopolis. There he denied the faith and turned to Islam, but later repented and withdrew to the Holy Mountain of Athos, where he did penance and, after the rule given him, was anointed with holy chrism. For a long time he laboured on Athos, but his soul never had full peace. The blessed one found no other means of wiping out his denial of Christ than to confess Him before those before whom he had denied Him, and at last he was kindled with a firm desire for martyrdom. Declaring his thought to his spiritual father and other spiritual fathers and finding them in agreement, he gave all he had to the fathers, as alms, asking their prayers, so needed for the great struggle awaiting him, and, leaving the Holy Mountain, came to Karachasu.

The Turks, seeing him, recognized him, seized him and brought him to the judge, testifying that this man at a certain time had denied Christ and become a Turk, and now had come and walked in Christian clothes. Before the judge the saint confirmed the words of the accusers, declared himself a Christian and refused to renounce his faith. They put him in prison, where for eight days the Turks tormented him cruelly: they stretched his legs in a wooden frame until the groin was nearly torn, then brought a metal bowl heated red-⁠hot and put it on his head like a skullcap; then they wound a rope round his head and tightened it so hard that the whites of his eyes stood out of their place. But the brave soldier of Christ went on confessing Christ. Then the judge condemned him to death. On 2 October 1794 the martyr was beheaded. He is commemorated on 4 July, in the Synaxis of the Athonite Fathers, a movable day.