Venerable Martyr
Venerable Martyr Acacius of Athos
† 1 мая 1816
Also known as: Акакий Новый, Акакий Афонский, Константинопольский, Акакий Серрский, Афанасий (имя в крещении)
An Athonite monk who as a boy was beaten into renouncing Christ; after years of repentance on Mount Athos he confessed Christ before the Turkish authorities in Constantinople and was beheaded in 1816.
Venerable Martyr Acacius, baptised Athanasius, was born in the 18th century in Neochorion near Thessalonica. Apprenticed as a boy to a cruel cobbler in Serres, he was persuaded under the beatings to renounce Christ and lived for some nine years in a Muslim household.
At eighteen he returned to Thessalonica, abandoned Islam and went to Mount Athos, living at Hilandar and Iveron. Hearing of the recent martyrdom of Saints Euthymius and Ignatius, he resolved to confess Christ where he had denied Him. Under the guidance of the elders Nikephoros and Acacius he prepared through prayer and fasting and was tonsured with the name Acacius.
Accompanied by the elder Gregory, he sailed to Constantinople, went to the Porte in Turkish dress, declared himself a Christian and trampled his turban. After beatings and imprisonment he was beheaded on 1 May 1816. His body was taken to Iveron; the heads of Saints Acacius, Euthymius and Ignatius are kept at the Russian St Panteleimon Monastery on Athos. The Russian Church commemorates the three martyrs together on 1/14 May.