Martyr Triantaphyllos (Trandafil) of Zagora and Constantinople

The Martyr Triantaphyllos (Trandafil) was born in 1662 in the village of Zagora at the foot of Mount Pelion in Thessaly, Greece, into a pious family; from childhood he served in the village church. He worked as a sailor on one of the well-known ships from his native village. In the summer of 1680, when the ship docked at Constantinople, the young man was falsely accused by Turks of intending to convert to Islam. Refusing to renounce Christ, he was tortured and beheaded at the Constantinople Hippodrome on August 8, 1680, at the age of 18. His life was reportedly written by the hagiographer Ioannis Kariophyllis (not fully preserved); brief details were included by St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite in the Synaxaristes. In the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, the same saint is venerated as Trendafil (Triandafil) of Stara Zagora — apparently due to the similarity between the Greek toponym "Zagora" (Pelion) and the Bulgarian town of Stara Zagora, itself colloquially called "Zagora" under Ottoman rule. All biographical details (sailor, age 18, execution in Constantinople in 1680) match exactly across the Greek and Bulgarian traditions, indicating one and the same saint venerated under two place-names.