Who are celebrating today, Wednesday, August 24 – Great feast of Orthodoxy

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Check out the celebrator of the day.

Today, Wednesday, August 24, is Kosmas of Etolos, the Blessed Hieromartyr.

Those named Aetolia, Eutychios, Euthychis, Eutychia, Eutyhoula, Eutychitsa, Efi* are celebrating. Some names may also celebrate on another date.

Who was Cosmas the Aetolos?

Saint Kosmas of Aitolos (1714 – August 24, 1779), also known as Patrocosmas, was a Greek Orthodox monk. His common name was Konstas, while thanks to the reports of the Venetian prophets, which have been preserved in the state archives of Venice, we know that his last name was Esochoritis.

In 1961 he was declared a saint of the Orthodox Church.

He was born in Aetolia and as he states vaguely “My homeland is Greece from Apokuron”.

According to his biographer and contemporary Nikodimos Agioreitis, he was born in the village of Mega Dendro Apokourou near Thermo, while some scholars consider the neighboring Taxiarchi as a possible birthplace.

His birth year is 1714, because Nikodimos the Agiorite states that he died at the age of 65. Papakyriakou and Konstas place it in abilities.

Biography
He studied in the schools of Parnassida and Nafpaktia with famous priests: he learned the elementary letters from the priest Gerasimos Lytsikas, while around twenty he received grammar, i.e. the encyclical education from the priest Ananias, while he taught at the same time as a sub-teacher.

In 1749 he went to the Athoniada School of Mount Athos, where he studied at a higher level in theology and philosophy. There he was a monk for about two years at the Philotheos Monastery of Mount Athos.

In 1759 he left the monastery and on the order of Patriarch Seraphim began his tours in Western and Northern Greece and Epirus, in order to deal with the growing Islamization of Christians at the time.

He fervently encouraged Orthodox Christians to establish schools that would teach orthodoxy. The school is treated by Cosmas as a necessary condition for the promotion of orthodoxy and education as a tool of indoctrination in orthodoxy.

In addition to the importance of the Greek language, Cosmas the Aetolos often refers to the “desire”, which was the liberation of the genus. The acceptance of his preaching is associated with the revival of millenarian beliefs in the middle of the 18th century.

One of its characteristics is its absolute ruthlessness. He literally said: “I have no other cassock than the one I’m wearing.”

It is reported that within 16 years he founded about 200 schools.

In his Teachings he urged parents to teach their children Greek, which is the “language of the Church”.

“Study, my brothers, and guess letters as much as you can. And if you fathers don’t learn, let your children learn Greek, because our Church is also in Greek. And if you don’t study Greek, my brother, you can’t understand what our Church confesses.”

According to historian Paschalis Kitromelidis, Kosmas’ action is a “idiosyncratic expression of Russian propaganda”. Kosmas was associated with Evgenios Voulgaris and the Athonia School, while Patriarch Seraphim was associated with Russia’s policy in the Ottoman Empire.

In 1770, after the failure of the Orlovics in the Peloponnese, an anti-Ottoman revolt of the Romans with Russian instigation, the Turks suspected him of being an agent of the Russians.

According to other researchers, some Jews of Epirus contributed to the condemnation of Cosmas, because with his sermon he managed to transfer the bazaar from Sunday to Saturday, which brought financial losses to the Jews.

He was finally captured and executed on August 24, 1779, a Saturday, in the village of Kolikodasi near the town of Verati in present-day Albania.

The Saint often spoke negatively about the Jews in his sermons, however in his sermon he had explicitly said: “Those who have wronged Christians or Jews or Turks, give back the wrong.”

The Venetians, the Kotsabasis, the rich and other powerful people, who considered themselves offended, also turned against him. On the contrary, Cosmas had the popular support of Christians and even Turks.

There were no formal charges against him, nor was he tried before his death.

Regarding the suspicion of the Venetians towards him, their spy reports are still preserved in the Venetian archives.

Later, under the influence of nationalist myth, Kosmas was considered a premature exponent of national ideals.

A similar opinion is expressed by the representatives of the Albanian nationalist intelligentsia, who consider him either an agent of the sultan or a sower of Greek national ideology on Albanian soil.

The anger of the Albanian nationalists against the hieromartyr Patrokosmas was also manifested on the 300th anniversary of his birth, in 2014 in the celebration of his memory at the place where he was martyred in Kolikodasi.

It is a fact that the Patriarch had a milder attitude towards Muslims compared to Jews or Catholics, perhaps because the former accepted the possibility of repentance.

This belief of his was confirmed in a dramatic way, as Ali Pasha, either out of gratitude or as a sign of repentance, requested that the remains of the saint be collected and a temple built in his name, which was completed in 1814.

He was officially declared a saint by the Patriarchate of Constantinople on April 20, 1961 and his memory is commemorated on August 24. In addition to Greece, he is often honored in Russia, Serbia, Bulgaria, Armenia, the USA, Cyprus, Ukraine, Romania, Montenegro and North Macedonia.

With information from ekklisiaonline

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