Equal-to-the-Apostles, Hieromartyr Cosmas of Aetolia, of Athos, of Albania

Hieromartyr Cosmas was born in 1714 in the village of Mega Dendron in the mountainous region of Aetolia (Greece). He received his early education in his homeland under Archdeacon Ananias Dervishanas, then continued his studies on Mount Athos, where he took monastic vows at the Philotheou Monastery. Concerned for the spiritual enlightenment of his fellow believers enslaved under Ottoman rule, St. Cosmas received the blessing of the Patriarch of Constantinople for preaching and for over twenty years traveled through Greece, Albania, and Macedonia, preaching in public squares and churches, reconciling the warring, denouncing vice, and opening hundreds of elementary schools at his own expense and through donations to teach children literacy. His preaching and educational activity aroused the displeasure of local Turkish authorities and suspicious merchants who saw a threat to their income in his calls for moral correction. Slandered before the pasha, St. Cosmas was seized and, on August 24, 1779, at age 65, strangled by order of the Turks; his body was thrown into a river but found three days later by the priest Mark and buried near the village of Kalikondasi, in the Ardenitsa Monastery of the Presentation of the Theotokos. He was glorified by the Patriarchate of Constantinople as Equal-to-the-Apostles on April 20, 1961.