Jacob of Kastoria

Saint Jacob of Kastoria, new martyr (about 1500 to 1 November 1519 or 1520), was a monk of Bulgarian descent from the village of Gorenci, in the diocese of Kastoria, who preached in his native region and was hanged by the Turks at Adrianople, together with his two disciples, Hierodeacon Jacob and the monk Dionysius. Our sources do not give the date of canonization; his Life was written and venerated on Athos, and his relics are at the skete of the Forerunner of the Iviron monastery. We have no commemoration day for him.

Life

He was born in the village of Gorenci (today Korisos of Kastoria, in Greece), then in the Ottoman Empire, in the family of the local Bulgarians Martin and Paraskeva. He grew rich from sheep-⁠breeding, but was denounced by his brother, who envied him, to the local qadi, as having found a treasure. He escaped persecution by selling his flocks and moving to Constantinople, where he became a sheep merchant and grew richer still. At that time, impressed by the teachings of Patriarch Nephon II of Constantinople, known among the people as a healer and wonderworker, he confessed to him, then gave his wealth to the poor and retired to the Athonite monastery of Dochiariou, and later to the abandoned skete of the Forerunner at Iviron, which he renewed. He spent some time there, as disciple of an elder named Ignatius. He perfected himself spiritually so far that he became a wonderworker and a seer. He gave himself to silence and solitude in the depths of the Holy Mountain, disturbed only on Saturdays and Sundays by a few disciples.

Later he left the monastery and began to preach through his native Kastoria. He taught monks and visited the fortress of Petra, Meteora and the monastery of the Forerunner at Dervekisten, near Nafpaktos. As a wandering preacher he strengthened his fame as healer and wonderworker, as exorcist and as one who knew how to obtain from the Lord spring water and rain, and gathered around him many followers and disciples. By this he drew a new accusation from Bishop Acacius of Kastoria, of preparing a revolt, and together with the elder Jacob two of his disciples were arrested: Hierodeacon Jacob and the monk Dionysius. The elder was interrogated and tortured by the bey of Trikala, who could not wring any confession from him. According to Theophan of Ohrid he was sent to Didymoteicho, then to Adrianople, to be judged by Sultan Selim I himself, nine to ten months before the ruler's death; according to the Life, Jacob foretold the death of Selim. Judged and tortured first by the sultan, then by a pasha, Jacob of Kastoria and his disciples admitted nothing, but preached Christianity to their tormentors and, at the sultan's wish, who wanted to make them accept Islam, discussed theological themes with the pasha. They were sentenced to death by hanging. Jacob gave communion to his two disciples in the prison at Adrianople with a hidden prosphoron, after which he received from God his repose. The monk Dionysius and Deacon Jacob were hanged together with the body of their teacher, on 1 November 1519 or 1520.

Relics

His relics were bought back by Christians and buried at the monastery of Saint Anastasia the Deliverer from Potions, at Galatista, near Thessaloniki. Later Dionysius of Ardameri and the former metropolitan of Thessaloniki, Damascene, persuaded the monks of Saint Anastasia to give the relics of the new martyr Jacob of Kastoria to the skete of the Forerunner at Iviron, where he had become a monk.