Theocharis of Neapolis

Saint Theocharis of Neapolis (Nevşehir) the new martyr was a young Greek from Cappadocia who chose death rather than deny Christ and accept Islam. He was martyred on 20 August 1740 in Neapolis (now Nevşehir), in eastern Asia Minor. He is commemorated on 20 August.

His life

Theocharis was a Cappadocian Greek and was orphaned early. According to tradition, at the time when the Ottoman state was at war (the Russian source puts here the sultan's order to round up all male Christian children into military camps), he was taken with other Christian boys to a camp. The child begged the Lord day and night to deliver him from torment. Once the qadi (Islamic judge) of Neapolis, passing through the camp, noticed him, took him out of the camp and took him to his estate, to work, entrusting to him the care of the stables. One evening the qadi's wife saw Theocharis praying for a long time, on his knees and with hands raised to heaven. Amazed at his piety, she persuaded the qadi to give their daughter to him. When the qadi proposed to Theocharis that he become his son-⁠in-⁠law and inherit his fortune, on one condition, that he accept Islam, the young man answered bravely: "My lord, I was born a Christian, and I cannot deny the faith of my Saviour and my forefathers." The judge took the answer as an insult and threatened him with hunger, torture and death.

Theocharis went to the church of Saint George, to the archimandrite Father George, where he confessed and received the Holy Mysteries, and then returned to his master. Remaining firm in his refusal, he was thrown into prison, for a long time without food and with little water. During this time Theocharis spent his days in prayer, not feeling the torment of hunger, content with the drops of water he managed to drink from time to time. After some time, when he again refused to renounce his faith, he was bound to a horse and taken an hour's distance from Neapolis, where there was a poplar tree. There he was hanged, stoned and buried beneath the tree where he was martyred. When they threw him into a pit dug there, according to tradition, the sky darkened and a great storm broke out, with thunder and lightning, which made the execution party lose its way and be swept by the current, although the weather had been clear until then. These things happened at noon on 20 August 1740, the hour at which the martyr gave up his spirit.

Veneration

The poplar was called "Kanlı Kavak", in Turkish "the Bloody Poplar", and for some time blood was said to have flowed from its broken branches. The tree became a place of pilgrimage for both Ottomans and Orthodox. After the population exchange between Greece and Turkey, following the Treaty of Lausanne in 1923, the relics of Saint Theocharis were moved to the church of Saint Catherine in Thessalonica, where they remain today. Part of his right hand is permanently on display in the church, and his memory is kept with a procession of the relics on 20 August. A church in his honour has been built at Anissaras, in the port of Hersonissos near Heraklion. His troparion calls him an unshakeable pillar, who bore pain, hunger, guards, prison and scourges, was bound to a horse and dragged for love of Christ, stoned, hanged and brought to completion under the poplar of blood, the treasure of Thessalonica and the light of Cappadocia.