Gregory V of Constantinople

The holy hieromartyr Gregory V was three times ecumenical patriarch of Constantinople and was hanged by the Turks in 1821, on Easter day, at the start of the Greek War of Independence. He is commemorated on 10 April.

Youth

He was born in 1745 or 1746 at Dimitsana, in the Peloponnese, in a poor family; his name in the world was Georgios Angelopoulos. After the first lessons in the village he studied at Athens, then, from 1767, at Smyrna, where an uncle of his was at the church of Saint George. He became a monk at the monastery of Strofades, taking the name Gregory, then studied at the school of Patmos. Returning to Smyrna, he was ordained deacon by Metropolitan Procopius. His translation into modern Greek of the homilies of Saint John Chrysostom brought him renown as a scholar. In 1785, when Procopius was elected patriarch, Gregory was consecrated metropolitan of Smyrna.

Patriarch

In 1797 the Holy Synod elected him patriarch of Constantinople. He was removed in 1798 and sent to the monastery of Iviron on Mount Athos; he was elected a second time, in 1806, and removed again, in 1808 or 1810, when he was exiled first to the Princes’ Islands and then again to Athos. On 14 December 1818 he was elected for the third time. He cared much for the education of the clergy and for the restoration of the patriarchal cathedral of Saint George, badly damaged by the fire of 1738. So as not to draw reprisals on the Greeks of Constantinople, he condemned the Greek revolutionary movement, and when he was asked to join the secret society Filiki Eteria, he refused, saying he could not swear unquestioning obedience to leaders unknown to him.

His death

After the Greek rebels had won some successes in the Peloponnese, the sultan Mahmud II held him to blame for not having been able to quell the uprising. Right after the Easter Divine Liturgy, on 10 April 1821, the Turks took him from the patriarchal cathedral, still in his vestments, and executed him on the spot, and his body remained two days hanging at the gate of the patriarchate. Later Greek sailors brought the body to Odessa. In the end he was buried in the metropolitan cathedral of Athens. The Saint Peter Gate of the patriarchate was sealed in 1821 and has remained shut since. His killing, especially on Easter day, angered and grieved the Greeks and Orthodox Russia and stirred protests in Europe. The Church of Greece honours him as a martyr of the nation.