Joseph of Thessaloniki

Holy Hieromartyr Joseph of Thessaloniki (Joseph III Antonopoulos, also called Dalivaris) was born on 13 January 1749 at Dimitsana and was hanged at Constantinople on 3 June 1821. He was metropolitan of Drama and then of Thessaloniki and is honoured as a saint by the Orthodox Church, on 3 June.

Youth

The sources for his life are poor and do not allow a detailed biography. He was born at Dimitsana in the middle of the eighteenth century. He must have received his first schooling in his native town and perhaps attended the school of the Philosophou monastery or that of Dimitsana. About his later steps only conjectures can be made: Athos, Smyrna, Constantinople are some of the places where he perhaps went, to study further. A Bulgarian source says that he served as archdeacon of the diocese of Ephesus and as great protosyncellus of the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The metropolitan

According to the Greek source, in 1780 or in 1787 he succeeded Metropolitan Gerasimos of Paros on the metropolitan throne of Drama. According to the Bulgarian source, in July 1797 he was elected metropolitan of Philippi and Drama and consecrated on 20 August 1797. After the death of Gerasimos of Thessaloniki, he was transferred in November 1810 to the Metropolis of Thessaloniki. Both as metropolitan of Drama and of Thessaloniki he often went to Constantinople, to take part, as a synod member, in the Holy Synod of the Ecumenical Patriarchate. The patriarchal documents of the years 1815 to 1821 bear his signature too. In 1819 he went to Constantinople as a member of the patriarchal Synod, and the bishop of Kitros, Meletios, was appointed locum tenens at Thessaloniki. Gedeon describes him as a "learned cleric and lover of the Muses". He wished to buy newly printed books. He is named in the 1806 catalogue of the Chronological Epitome of General History and was also a subscriber to the Geography of Dionysios Pyrrhos of Thessaly. He also supported the printing of other books of religious content, such as the New Martyrologion of Nicodemus the Hagiorite.

Martyrdom

During the time when he was at Constantinople, and after the beginning of the uprising in the Danubian Principalities, the sultan demanded seven hierarchs as a guarantee, among them Joseph. The Turkish authorities arrested him and imprisoned him in the Bostanci prison in Constantinople, together with the bishops arrested with him: Athanasius of Nicomedia, Gregory of Derkoi, Eugenios of Anchialos, Dionysios of Ephesus, Dorotheos of Adrianople and Joannikios of Tarnovo. On 10 April Patriarch Gregory V was hanged and on the same day the hierarchs Athanasius of Nicomedia, Eugenios of Anchialos and Dionysios of Ephesus. On 3 June 1821 the other imprisoned metropolitans were hanged, in different places of Constantinople: Joannikios of Tarnovo at Arnavutköy, Dorotheos of Adrianople at Megarevma, Joseph of Thessaloniki at Neochori and, last, Gregory of Derkoi at Therapia. The Bulgarian source says he was hanged on 3 or 4 June 1821 at Eniköy (Neochori), on the Bosporus.