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| Venerable Martyr Dionysios (Feast Day - October 10 and July 31) |
The Venerable Martyr Dionysios, a monk of Vatopaidi Monastery, was sent to Crete in 1822 to escort the Holy Girdle of the Theotokos because of an epidemic that ravaged the island. Since at that time a revolution broke out in Crete, the Turks arrested him as a hostage and pressured him to convert to Islam.
Because he refused the Turks tortured him by piercing his head with a flaming spit. Remaining steadfast and unyielding in his faith he was led on Clean Monday (February 13) in 1822 to the gallows, after first confessing his sins and receiving Holy Communion.
As a perfect martyr and confessor he was inducted by a Synodal Act of the Ecumenical Patriarchate into the list of saints of the the Church (on September 21, 2000 together with other martyrs from Vatopaidi that accompanied him). The day for his commemoration was set for July 31.
