St. Gregory V, Patriarch of Constantinople, hero of the counterjihad

By Abbot Tryphon on Ancient Faith Radio:

April 23, 2015 Length: 4:04

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From Abbot Tryphon’s blog:

Great Hieromartyr Gregory pray to God for us

In 1821, on Pascha, the Feast of Feasts, the Resurrection of Christ, the Moslem Sultan, Mahmud II, ordered the murder of the Oecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, Gregory V, First Among Equals of the Bishops of the Orthodox Church, in reprisal for the Greek uprising, on the mainland, against their Moslem captors.

This barbaric act was simply incomprehensible in its crude enactment. The Patriarch, 74 years of age, was arrested at the Paschal Liturgy, on the night of April 10, where he was celebrating the service with eight Hierarchs and the clergy and Faithful.

Still dressed in his vestments, he was taken by the Turkish Sultan’s officers and hanged at the gate of the Patriarchal compound, after they offered him freedom in exchange for his conversion to their religion, which he of course refused.

Here he was left hanging for three days, as the Moslem population passed by hurling insults at him. Afterwards, his body was dragged through the streets of Constantinople and thrown into the Bosphorus.

When news of this heinous act reached the West, the press was incredulous and shocked. Only today, as we see Islamic extremism once again raise its ugly head, has the West come to realize fully the savagery, bestiality, and depravity of such extremism.

Rescued from the sea, St. Gregory’s body was taken to Odessa, in Ukraine, where he was solemnly buried as a Martyr. His Relics were later moved to the Metropolitan Cathedral of Athens, where they are found to this day.

The sad truth is that we are seeing the resurrection of this Islamic barbarism, and the number of Christian martyrs is increasing on a daily basis. Most Western politicians refuse to admit this has anything to do with Islam, and dismiss it simply as a form of extremism. This Friday, April 24th, we will be observing the 100th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, while the Turkish government continues to tell the world this terrible extermination of one and a half million Armenian Christians, never happened.

With love in Christ,
Abbot Tryphon

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