Angelis of Argos
The Holy New Martyr Angelis the Physician of Argos
New Martyr · d. December 3, 1813
Commemorated 3 December — Martyrdom at Chios, 1813
Angelis (Aggelis) was a devout Greek physician of Argos in the Peloponnese who longed for martyrdom in the last generation of the Ottoman yoke. Provoked to zeal by an impious Frenchman, and then despondent when the confrontation cost him nothing, he took the terrible step of denying Christ and professing Islam in the hope of winning a martyr's death by later recanting. Exiled to Chios, he came to his senses, wept in repentance, and openly confessed himself a Christian before the Turkish authorities. After brutal beatings and imprisonment, he was beheaded on December 3, 1813, and his body cast into the sea. The Church honours him as a New Martyr on December 3.
The physician of Argos
Angelis was born in Argos, in the Peloponnese, and practised there as a physician. The sources describe him as gentle, merciful, and ardent in his Orthodox faith. (Some accounts place his medical practice further east, near Ephesus, before the events that made him famous; the notices agree on his Argive origin and on the zeal that undid and then remade him.)
The duel and the fall
His downfall began, paradoxically, in an act of faith. Drawn into a religious dispute with an impious Frenchman who mocked Christianity, Angelis was so stung by the blasphemy that he challenged the man to a public duel — proposing to demonstrate the strength that the true faith gives to Christians by meeting his fully-armed adversary carrying nothing but a stick. He prepared as for death, receiving confession, Holy Communion, and his spiritual father's blessing; but when the day came the Frenchman backed down rather than fight, and Angelis was declared the victor. Instead of rejoicing he fell into despondency, for he had gone out hoping to die for Christ and had been denied the crown.
Craving the martyrdom that had eluded him, Angelis conceived a ruinous plan. On Lazarus Saturday of 1813 he denied the faith of his fathers and, of his own accord, professed Islam — intending, it seems, to provoke his own execution by publicly recanting. He then behaved so disruptively, feigning drunkenness and causing disturbances in a coffee-house at Nauplion (Nafplio) to show his contempt for the religion he had falsely embraced, that the authorities, rather than killing him, drove him out and exiled him to the island of Chios.
Repentance, confession, and martyrdom
On Chios the enormity of his apostasy broke over him, and he gave himself to repentance: weeping daily in the churches, praying, and distributing alms. During the fast of Ramadan he publicly drank water before the appointed hour, openly confessing himself a Christian. About six months later he went further: he rushed into the Turkish custom-house and, before the assembled soldiers and officials, loudly proclaimed himself a Christian who had rejected Islam. They fell upon him with great brutality, beat him, loaded him with irons, and imprisoned him in the fortress. To his judges he explained that his earlier scandalous conduct had been a deliberate demonstration of the falsity of the religion he had been tricked into professing. Remaining steadfast in the Christian confession, he was beheaded on December 3, 1813, and his sacred relics were thrown into the sea.
Feast and commemoration
Angelis is commemorated on December 3 (Old Calendar civil December 16), within the Nativity Fast, among the New Martyrs of the Turkish period; the feast is kept in the Greek tradition and is listed by the Orthodox Church in America. He is titled in various calendars from his place of origin (Angelis of Argos) or from the place of his martyrdom (Angelos of Chios); the two names denote one and the same saint.
Iconography
As a martyr of the early nineteenth century, Angelis is honoured chiefly in modern Greek iconography, where he is shown as a layman of his period holding the cross and the palm of martyrdom, sometimes with the physician's attribute. No pre-modern or free-licensed image of him has been secured for this collection, and the entry is listed among those wanting an icon.