Ioannikios

Ioannikios, Metropolitan of Tarnovo, was arrested and hanged at Constantinople in 1821, the same year as Patriarch Gregory V, for his Orthodox faith. The Holy Synod of the Church of Greece numbered him among the saints in July 2021, as a hieromartyr, and the synodal act appoints his memory on 3 June, the day he was hanged, and, in common with that of the Patriarch and the other hierarchs, on the Saturday of Bright Week.

The sources we have say nothing about his beginnings, studies or pastoral work. The synodal act counts him among the seven metropolitans arrested and hanged after the Patriarch: Eugenios of Anchialos, Ioannikios of Tarnovo, Dorotheos of Adrianople, Joseph of Thessaloniki, Gregory of Derkoi, Dionysios of Ephesus and Athanasios of Nicomedia. Of these, Eugenios, Dionysios and Athanasios were killed on 10 April, and Joseph, Dorotheos, Gregory and Ioannikios on 3 June 1821.

Tarnovo, in present-⁠day Bulgaria, was at that time under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. Ioannikios suffered at Constantinople, together with the other three hierarchs hanged on 3 June. Since 2021 his name has been commemorated in the Church of Greece.