The New Martyr George of Ioannina and His Canonization by the Ecumenical Patriarchate

The New Martyr Saint George of Ioannina and his martyrdom, a popular icon of the 19th century,
Benaki Museum

By Archimandrite Michael Stathakis

“1838: January: 17: a certain young man in Ioannina, named George, was slandered by the Turks of Ioannina that he had changed his religion and become a Turk. They brought him before the Kadi and before the Vizier Mustafa Pasha, examined him, and tortured him greatly. In the end he was not persuaded to become a Turk; he stood firm and did not change his Christianity. They hanged him at Kouramargio, and he remained hanging for two days. They then took him down and buried him at the Metropolis on January 19, and he became a martyr and works miracles for those who approach with faith. This is most true. The Saint had a wife and a child fifteen days old, who are alive in Ioannina.”

Thus simply — very simply — a monk of the Sacred Monastery of Panagia Eleousa on the island of Ioannina describes, on a page of the Great Horologion, the martyrdom of Saint George the New Martyr of Ioannina. He recounts the events as simply as George’s own life was simple. A young man, only twenty-eight years old, a horse groomer by profession, he had only recently married his wife Helen and had a son with her, whom he baptized just a few days before his martyric end.

Saint Anthony the Great in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

Saint Athanasios the Great, that ecumenical Father and Teacher of our Church, who also wrote the Life of Saint Anthony — in reality an extended letter — says that it is “great profit for a person even to remember Anthony alone.” Saint Augustine, that great Saint of the Church, made the definitive decision to convert to the Christian faith and to be baptized, under the guidance of course of the Bishop of Milan, Saint Ambrose, when he studied the Life of Saint Anthony. The great ascetic of the Gerontikon, who asked God to reveal to him all the great saints of his time, saw his request fulfilled — except for Anthony. And when he asked the Lord why this had happened, he received the answer: “Anthony is very close to Me, and you cannot see him.” Therefore, when we speak about Saint Anthony, we are not speaking of a simple saint of the Church. His spiritual stature is exceedingly great, reaching even to those “borders” of the Trinitarian Godhead.

The Hymnography of our Church compares him to the Prophet Elijah and to Saint John the Baptist. Whatever Saint Anthony himself saw as a way of life in the earlier ascetic Saint Paul of Thebes (“a companion of Paul the Theban”), the same he struggled to practice. Saint Paul the Theban was a new Prophet Elijah and a new John the Forerunner; likewise also Saint Anthony. As his Apolytikion says: “Imitating the zealous Elijah in your ways, and following the straight paths of the Baptist, O Father Anthony.” Furthermore, the Church also likens him to Moses, calling him a “new Moses,” because “in the desert you set up the trophy against enemies and adversaries, leading the people.” It is therefore no surprise at the titles our Church bestows on him through her hymns: “Father of Fathers,” “luminary of luminaries,” “the glory of the inhabited world,” “an angel on earth and a man of God in heaven.”

Homily for the Commemoration of Saint Anthony the Great (Fr. Daniel Sysoev)

Homily for the Commemoration of Saint Anthony the Great

By Fr. Daniel Sysoev

In the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit!

Today is the feast day of Saint Anthony the Great, the father of monasticism, the first holy monk to found a monastery in the desert. On this day, we remember the very place to which he was led by the Spirit of God. Anthony the Great exemplifies true hope and complete, absolute trust in the Creator. He was a fairly wealthy Egyptian, a Copt, who owned his own farmland.

But one day, while going to work in the field, he decided to stop by the temple on the way, where the Gospel was being read at that moment, and he heard: “Whoever wants to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross, and follow Me” (Matthew 16:24).

Anthony went out and said: “The Lord says to me: follow Me, how can I now go and cultivate the field?” He immediately went and sold the field, and decided to leave part of the money for the food of his sister.

Prologue in Sermons: January 17

The State of the Soul After Separation From the Body

January 17

(Commemoration of our Venerable Father Anthony the Great)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

In the Prologue, in the brief account of the life of Saint Anthony the Great, it is mentioned, among other things, that he received from God the gift of seeing what happens to the soul of a person after it is separated from the body. This is expressed in the account as follows:

“Anthony, while yet in the mortal body, beheld, when a soul departed from the body, the very ascents of the soul and the demons who oppose them, which is proper to the noetic and bodiless nature.”

What does this mean, brethren? What happens to the soul of a person after it is separated from the body? And what are the “ascents of the soul”? And how should we understand the expression “demons opposing”? Let us speak about this for our edification.

The Veneration of the Honorable Chain of the Holy Apostle Peter in the Hymnography of the Orthodox Church

By Fr. George Dorbarakis

On this day we celebrate the Veneration of the Honorable Chain of Saint Peter, which the tetrarch Herod put upon him when he imprisoned him, as the Apostle Luke relates in the Acts of the Apostles. This Chain, which was loosed by the appearance of an Angel, was found by some of the faithful and preserved in succession. It was later transferred by the pious to Constantinople and placed in the temple of Saint Peter within the Great Church.

On the occasion of the Honorable Chain of the Apostle Peter, the hymnography of the Church today sets forth two things: first, the very existence of the chain itself and the interpretation of its veneration; and second, the honor shown by the Church to the sacred person of the Apostle Peter. And this is natural: this Chain of the Apostle is understood in the same way as icons in the Church — as means of reference to the saints. “The honor passes to the prototype.” The same is true of the Chain: through it we are led to him who was the first among the Apostles, “he who, being wholly united to the most pure light, Christ, through divine participation in Him, appeared as a second light, illuminating also our souls.”

January: Day 16: Teaching 2: Veneration of the Honorable Chains of the Holy and All-Praiseworthy Apostle Peter

January: Day 16: Teaching 2:
Veneration of the Honorable Chains of the Holy and All-Praiseworthy Apostle Peter
 
(On the Suffering of the Righteous)

By Archpriest Grigory Dyachenko

I. Today’s feast reminds us of how the Holy Foremost Apostle suffered in chains — that is, in bonds, in prison confinement — suffering for the holy faith.

II. Why, one may ask, must those suffer who so greatly loved their Lord, and to whom, beyond doubt, the Lord was close with His mercies? “Why is the path of those who please the Lord strewn with various afflictions?”

Can light and darkness live in friendship? No! The morning light drives away the darkness of night; the gloom of approaching night drives away the light of day. In the same way, the world hates the righteous, because their deeds, their character, their aspirations are opposed to it, like light and darkness. For the world, the very life of a righteous person is a reproach. Even if the righteous person, by a vow of humility, says not a word to the world about its dark deeds; even if, by a vow of love, he does everything to preserve peace with all — still it cannot be that the world will remain forever pleased with the righteous. “The world has hated them, because they are not of the world” (John 17:14), says heavenly Truth about His beloved disciples. The world hates God’s disciples precisely because they in no way belong — or do not wish to belong — to the world. Thus, sufferings are inevitable for the righteous in the world, as long as this sinful world exists. “All who desire to live godly in Christ Jesus will be persecuted” (2 Tim. 3:12).

Prologue in Sermons: January 16

One Must Be Attentive to the Promptings of One's Conscience

January 16

(From the tale of a certain monk who wished to take the daughter of an pagan priest and who had renounced Christ and His holy baptism; yet God saved him once more.)

By Archpriest Victor Guryev

The word of God says that “the inclination of a man’s heart is toward evil from his youth” (Gen. 8:21), that is, that we are more inclined to evil than to good. Yet the Providence of God, even amid our moral corruption, nevertheless keeps watch over us and often restrains or corrects the evil that arises in us through our departure from good, and always desires to turn it to good ends. Unfortunately, toward these beneficent actions of God we most often show not only negligence, but also ingratitude.

For example, a person devises some evil deed and begins to seek the means to carry it out; but suddenly an external obstacle appears, or conscience raises its voice, and the sin is not committed. What else should one do then, if not thank God for being preserved from sin and begin the correction of one’s life? But no! Instead, he merely grumbles that his evil intention was not carried out, and again begins to think how he might more quickly find a way to sin and commit it. Because of this, we often see that the longer a person lives, the worse he becomes, and sometimes he sinks completely into evil. Yet this would not happen — he would not become worse, but better — if he were attentive to God’s admonitions and to the promptings of his conscience.

The Transgressive Course and Anti-Ecclesiastical Behavior of the Russian Church

 

By Archimandrite of the Ecumenical Throne Gerasimos Fragkoulakis

Hanover, Germany

January 16, 2026

The historical course of relations between the Ecumenical Patriarchate of Constantinople and the Russian Orthodox Church has often been marked by periods of tension. The Ecumenical Patriarchate, as the “First among equals” in the administrative structure of Orthodoxy, has always held the role of guarantor of ecclesiastical order and the unity of the Local Churches, according to the words “that they may be one” (John 17:21). The Russian Church, recognized as a Patriarchate in the sixteenth century, developed a strong national and ecclesiastical identity, often desiring to play a leading role within the Orthodox world.

Although the Church of Constantinople constitutes the Mother Church of the Patriarchate of Moscow, the Church of Russia has never ceased, from the very moment of its foundation, to attempt to diminish and downgrade the Ecumenical Patriarchate.

The incidents that demonstrate this stance of the Russian Church are very numerous, and their description could fill many volumes. We shall mention only some of them, which highlight the transgressive course of the Patriarchate of Moscow.

Life and Conduct of Venerable John the Kalyvites (the Hut-Dweller)

Verses

Renouncing the world as a child, he left behind the hut of the earth,
In the heavens he established a new hut.
On the fifteenth, John exchanged his earthly hut for another.

Prologue

Jesus, the Eternal Conqueror. Jesus, the Great Kindler of Fire. Jesus, the Incendiary of Souls. Hundreds of hearts align their pulses with Him.

Myriads of human beings receive His summons on the shores of their Galilee.

Countless faithful follow Jesus. Diverse and unique, they fill the multifaceted firmament of the Church.

In action and in hiddenness, in preaching and in silence, they become Witnesses of Christ, practical translators of the Gospel, ardent lovers of the Divine Teacher.

One soul enraptured by Divine Eros is the Venerable John the Hut-Dweller.