Gerasimos

Gerasimos Pardalis, Metropolitan of Crete, was killed by the Turks on 23 or 24 June 1821 in the church of St Menas at Heraklion, together with the bishops who were there and many clergy and faithful. The Ecumenical Patriarchate numbered him among the saints in the year 2000 as a hieromartyr, and the Church commemorates him on 23 June, together with the other martyrs of Crete of 1821.

Nothing is preserved of his early life. He was shepherd of the Church of Crete when the Revolution broke out in 1821, and an old man. When news of the uprising in the Peloponnese reached the island, the Turkish authorities made him summon all the bishops of Crete to Heraklion, no doubt to hold them as hostages. The metropolitan sent the summonses but, tradition says, secretly warned the bishops not to come, foreseeing the slaughter.

On 23 June 1821 a synod was gathered in the church of St Menas. The metropolitan had begun to read a letter sent by the vizier when the Turks, who had been lying in wait, rushed inside shouting, shut the doors and began the killing. The metropolitan fell first, with no regard for his age; after him the bishops of Knossos, Chersonisos, Sitia and Diopolis. Seventeen priests were also killed, and five Athonite fathers from Vatopedi who had been brought to Heraklion with holy relics and the Belt of the Mother of God to pray against the plague, and nearly three hundred Christians. The Bishop of Lampi was killed in the street with his deacon, and on the next day the Bishop of Petra was shot.

The first official commemoration of the martyrs of Crete took place on 11 November 2000 in the cathedral of St Menas at Heraklion. A hymn composed specially for the church where most of them suffered is sung there.