The Kareian Holy MonkMartyrs

Commemorated on December 5

      The Kareian Holy MonkMartyrs accepted a martyr's death from the papists, who were come with fire and sword onto Holy Mount Athos during the reign of the Byzantine emperor Michael Paleologos (1259-1282), an apostate from Orthodoxy. Bursting in upon the Kareia monastery, the Latins burnt and devastated the Protatos [the Athos governing assembly], "leaving no one alive". The Monk Protos, who had denounced the Latinising rationalising as heresy, was after much torture hung up afront the Protatos at the place called Khalkhos, and those hidden in caves around Kareia were cut down with swords.

© 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos.