Onuphrius of Gabrovo

Venerable martyr Onuphrius of Gabrovo (Onuphrius of Hilandar, born Matthew, in monasticism Manasius, 1786 to 4 January 1818) was a Bulgarian monk, a struggler at the Hilandar monastery on Athos, who received martyrdom on Chios, in the time of Ottoman rule. He is venerated by the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, which commemorates him on 4 January, and by the Serbian Church, which commemorates him also on 4 January Old Style (17 January New Style). The Bulgarian source says that the Athonites, the Greeks, canonized him and composed his life and service soon after the martyrdom.

Youth

He was born at Gabrovo, in the diocese of Tarnovo, in a family of local leading men, known as very pious people; at first he was named Matthew. He studied at a Bulgarian school, but apparently knew Turkish too. At seventeen he quarrelled with his parents and, in his anger, told them he would renounce Christianity and accept Islam. So that the Turks who had learned of it should not take advantage and circumcise him, his relatives hid him for a time, then sent him to a monastery (most probably the Troyan monastery of the Dormition), where he was tonsured a monk with the name Manasius. Gradually repentance seized him for his thoughtless words against his faith.

Toward martyrdom

Later he moved to the Hilandar monastery on Athos, where he was ordained deacon; there too, about that time, his father, Detcho, became a monk, with the name Daniel. After a time Manasius left Hilandar for the skete of the Forerunner, to the spiritual father Nikephoros, asking him to prepare him for the labour of martyrdom, by which he wished to atone for his former words. The preparation lasted four months, and at the end Nikephoros tonsured him into the great schema with the name Onuphrius and sent him to the island of Chios, a place soon famous for the death of several new martyrs, where he intended to do the same. He shared his plan with a few new companions, who helped him prepare the event.

On Chios Saint Onuphrius lived a week in fasting and prayer, guided by the Hilandar monk Gregory the Peloponnesian, sent with him. On Friday, in memory of the Crucifixion of the Lord, he went dressed in Turkish clothes, presenting himself as a long-⁠time Turk, but a secret Christian, before the qadi and, in the presence of several other visitors of his, reviled Muhammad and threw to the ground the green turban he had put on his head. They tried to make him apologize, but he refused firmly, so he was imprisoned, tortured and then sentenced to death. Before his death some asked him his name and homeland, and he, to protect his fellow monks, said he was called Matthew and was from Veliko Tarnovo. Earlier he had laboured to become known in the surroundings, sharing his plan with the local baker and visiting, in the guise of a Turk, several of the town's churches, where he behaved as a Christian.

On 4 January 1818, on the very shore of the sea, his head was cut off; then they gathered all his remains, including the blood shed, which they scooped up with the soil around the place of martyrdom, and carried everything by ship out to sea and threw it in several baskets; they cleaned the ship well, and probably the executioner's yataghan, so that the Christians, gathered in a crowd, should have no access to any part of his relics.

Veneration

In the 1820s Archimandrite Joseph Sokolski visited the Holy Mountain and, returning, brought the manuscript of the "Gabrovo Collection", in which the Life of the holy martyr Onuphrius of Gabrovo is described, copied by Petko Manafov of Gabrovo. In 1903 Vasil Karagiozov brought from the monastery of Zographou on Athos his life and service and gave them to the convent of the Annunciation at Gabrovo. In spite of the Turks' efforts, it is supposed that some of the relics surfaced and were preserved; a particle is kept in the church of the Dormition at Gabrovo. In 2020 the church "Saints Onuphrius, Damascene and All the Martyrs of Gabrovo" was consecrated at Gabrovo.