Eikon

Christos the Gardener

The Holy New Martyr Christos the Gardener, of Albania

New Martyr · b. c. 1708, in Albania — d. February 12, 1748, at Constantinople

Commemorated 12 February — Martyrdom at Constantinople, 1748

Christos (Kristo) the Gardener (c. 1708 – 1748) was a new martyr of the Ottoman period — a simple Albanian market-gardener who died at Constantinople rather than deny Christ. Come to the great city about the age of forty to earn his living by his trade, he fell into a dispute over the price of apples with a Turk, who in his anger denounced him to the authorities with the false claim that Christos had said he wished to become a Muslim. Arrested on the word of Muslim witnesses, Christos steadfastly refused to apostatise, endured imprisonment and torture, and was beheaded on February 12, 1748. His memory was recorded by the monk and writer Kaisarios Dapontes, who ministered to him in prison, and he is numbered among the Neomartyrs of the Faith.

The gardener of Constantinople

Christos was an Albanian by birth, born about the year 1708, a Christian who earned his bread by the humble and honest trade of tending a vegetable garden and selling its produce. About the age of forty he came to Constantinople, the Ottoman capital, seeking a better living, and worked there as a greengrocer.

The dispute and the false charge

His martyrdom grew out of a trifling quarrel of the marketplace. Selling his fruit, he fell into a disagreement over the price of apples with a Turkish buyer. The Turk, enraged, and knowing the deadly weight the law gave to such an accusation, went to the authorities and charged that Christos had declared his wish to renounce Christianity and turn Muslim — a lie, but one that under Ottoman law, once witnessed, could be made to cost a Christian his head unless he made the conversion good. Christos was arrested. In the examination, the testimony of the Muslim witnesses was received and his own denial dismissed, as the word of a Christian was by law of no account against theirs.

Confession, torture, and martyrdom

Christos held fast. He refused to accept Islam and confessed himself a Christian, whatever it should cost him. He was subjected to beatings and tortures to break his resolve, and cast into prison; but he would not yield. The monk and man of letters Kaisarios Dapontes — later of the Xeropotamou monastery on Athos, and the recorder of many of the neomartyrs of the age — visited him in his cell and sought to bring him food; but Christos would take no nourishment, saying (in the words the tradition preserves) that since he did not expect to live, he would rather die hungering and thirsting for Christ. Before his death he gave Dapontes a metal file, asking him to sell it and use the money for memorial services (mnemosyna) for his soul. On February 12, 1748, refusing to the last to deny his Lord, Christos was beheaded at Constantinople, and received the crown of the new martyrs.

Feast and commemoration

Christos is kept on February 12 (church date; Old Calendar civil February 25), the day of his martyrdom, among the Neomartyrs commemorated in Greek usage. His commemoration rests on the account of Kaisarios Dapontes and the collections of the neomartyrs; he is honoured especially in the Greek and Albanian tradition.

Hymns

Troparion — Tone 4

Thy Martyr Christos, O Lord, in his contest received from Thee our God the crown of incorruption; for having Thy strength, he cast down the persecutors and broke the feeble boldness of the tormentors. By his prayers, O Christ God, save our souls.

Original translation from the Greek

Iconography

As a new martyr of the eighteenth century, Christos is depicted in the manner of the neomartyrs of the Ottoman age: a layman in the dress of his people and calling, bearing the cross of martyrdom in his right hand and often a branch or basket or the instrument of his death; his beheading is the narrative scene. No pre-modern or free-licensed image proper to him has been secured for this entry; his icon is noted as wanting.

Disputed questions

  • Origin. He is styled "the Albanian" in the tradition; some notices, following his trade in the capital, call him simply "the Gardener of Constantinople." Both point to the same man. No Wikidata identifier for him has been secured (searched and not found).

Sources

  1. Kaisarios (Constantine) Dapontes, the eighteenth-century monk and writer who ministered to Christos in prison — the near-contemporary account of the dispute over the apples, the false charge, the imprisonment and refusal of food, the gift of the file, and the beheading in 1748.
  2. The collections of the Neomartyrs of the Ottoman period (the Neon Martyrologion tradition of Nikodemos the Hagiorite and its successors) — the memory of Christos the Gardener of Albania among the martyrs of the faith.
  3. Orthodox Church in America, Lives of the Saints, February 12 (consulted live) — the Albanian gardener come to Constantinople at forty, the quarrel over the price of apples, the false accusation of a wish to become Muslim, the trial on Muslim testimony, the torture, the ministry and record of Kaisarios Dapontes, and the beheading on February 12, 1748.