Theodosios Loufakis

Theodosios Loufakis was a hieromonk and abbot of the Monastery of St Menas on Chios. He was killed by the Ottomans on Chios in 1822, and the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece numbered him among the saints on 15 July 2021, on the proposal of Metropolitan Markos of Chios. His commemoration, together with that of the other martyrs of Chios, is kept on the Sunday of the Paralytic, at the metropolitan church of Chios.

In the spring of 1822 the Ottoman army and fleet fell upon Chios. More than forty thousand inhabitants were killed or carried off into slavery, and monasteries such as Nea Moni and St Menas were destroyed. According to the Metropolis of Chios, he received martyrdom on Easter Sunday 1822 in this monastery, together with the priest Iakovos Mauros. The stavropegic Monastery of St Menas, in the southern suburbs of the town of Chios, was one of the most afflicted places of the island: thousands of Christians were slaughtered there after a close siege, and the marks of the slaughter can still be seen on the floor of the church. A chapel keeps the bones of many of the slain. The sources we have keep no other details of his life or of how he died.