David of Saint Anne's Skete
The Holy New Venerable-Martyr David of Saint Anne's Skete on the Holy Mountain
New Martyr · Venerable Martyr · d. 26 June 1813, hanged at Thessalonica
Commemorated 26 June — Martyrdom by hanging at Thessalonica, 1813
David was an Athonite monk of the Skete of Saint Anne who was hanged at Thessalonica on 26 June 1813 for confessing Christ before the Ottoman authorities. He came of the Kydonians of Aivali (Ayvalık) on the Asia Minor coast, a town bound to the Holy Mountain by long ties of dependency and patronage. Consumed by the desire for martyrdom that marked the Kollyvades generation, he first went to Magnesia to denounce Islam publicly and was only beaten and driven out; obtaining at length the reluctant blessing of his elder, he went to Thessalonica intending to recall an apostate monk to the faith. The Turkish authorities learned of it, arrested him, and the judge — fearing precisely that the renegade might be won back — ordered his immediate execution. He is one of the last of the Athonite new-martyrs of the Turkish period.
Origins at Aivali
David was born among the Kydonians, the Greeks of Aivali in Asia Minor, a prosperous and self-governing town on the coast opposite Lesbos. Aivali stood in an unusually close relationship with the Holy Mountain: several Athonite houses held dependencies (metochia) there, Athonite fathers came and went, and the town's schools and its clergy were formed in that orbit. It sent a stream of young men to the Mountain, and David was one of them. Nothing is preserved of his family or of his life in the world before he came to Athos.
The Skete of Saint Anne
He was received into the Skete of Saint Anne, the largest and oldest of the Athonite sketes, on the south-western slope of the Mountain below the peak, under the monastery of the Great Lavra. Saint Anne's in this period was a centre of the strict, book-loving Kollyvades spirit and — through the New Martyrologion compiled by Nikodemos the Hagiorite and through the presence there of confessors who prepared candidates for martyrdom — a nursery of new-martyrs. It had already given the Church the new-martyr Macarius of Kios (†1590), whose skull is kept there, among others.
In this atmosphere David conceived the longing for martyrdom that dominates his short recorded history. It was not a private impulse but a recognised and carefully governed vocation: the fathers of the skete distrusted it as often as they blessed it, subjected the aspirant to fasting, confession and long testing, and refused as many as they sent.
The attempt at Magnesia
David went first, with the resolve of a neomartys, to Magnesia (Manisa), where he declared himself before the Muslim authorities and spoke against Islam. The result was not what he sought: he was beaten and expelled, and returned to the Mountain without the crown.
Martyrdom at Thessalonica
He pressed his elder for a further blessing. The spiritual father gave it reluctantly — the sources are explicit on the reluctance — and David went to Thessalonica. His purpose there was not, this time, a public denunciation but the recovery of a monk who had apostatised to Islam, whom he meant to confront and to call back to Christ.
The Turkish authorities were informed of the intention before he could carry it out and arrested him. The judge before whom he was brought understood the danger exactly: if the renegade were allowed to hear him, he might return to the faith, and the return of an apostate was itself a capital matter under Ottoman law. He therefore ordered David put to death at once, and he was hanged — on 26 June 1813, in the same city in whose harbour, twelve and a half centuries before, David the Dendrite had ended his own life's last errand.
Veneration
David's memory was kept first on Athos, at Saint Anne's, and among the Greeks of Thessalonica and of Aivali, and passed from the Athonite martyrologies into the general synaxaria; the Orthodox Church in America carries him among the commemorations of June 26. His name stands near the end of the long roll of Athonite new-martyrs of the Turkish centuries, which closes within a few years of his death with the outbreak of the Greek revolution in 1821 and the sack of Aivali itself.
Feast and commemoration
June 26 (church date; Old Calendar civil July 9), the day of his martyrdom, kept on the Holy Mountain — especially at the Skete of Saint Anne — in the Greek local synaxaria and by the Orthodox Church in America. He shares the day with the far greater commemoration of David the Dendrite, in whose shadow his own service is in practice kept at the proskomedia. The day falls within the window of the Apostles' Fast in most years.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a new venerable-martyr)
Having taken up the ascetic's struggle, thou didst add to it the martyr's contest, O David; for despising the fleeting life, thou didst confess Christ before the ungodly and receive the crown by the noose. Wherefore, O new venerable-martyr, entreat Him that our souls may be saved.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
David is written as a young or middle-aged Athonite monk in the black rason and koukoulion of the Great Schema, bearing the martyr's cross in his right hand and, as the mark of his particular passion, the rope or noose — carried in the hand, laid across the shoulders, or shown about his neck; the scene of his hanging at Thessalonica may fill the background, with the walls of the city behind. He appears principally in the composite icons of the New-Martyrs of the Holy Mountain and of the Saints of Saint Anne's Skete, where he stands in a rank of similarly habited monastic martyrs and is identified only by the inscription of his name.
No pre-1900 image of him has been located for this collection. He died in 1813 and the Athonite icons of the new-martyrs that include him are with few exceptions modern paintings, the copyright of living or recently deceased iconographers; the Menologion of Basil II, the standard fallback for minor saints, ends nine centuries before him and covers only September to February in any case. He is therefore listed in the the list of icons still being sought index.
Disputed questions
- The record is thin. What survives is essentially the martyrologists' notice: the origin at Aivali, the skete, the failed attempt at Magnesia, the reluctant blessing, the errand after the apostate, the arrest, the hanging, the date. No full martyrion of him has been consulted for this entry, and nothing beyond the notice is asserted here.
- Not to be confused with David of Thessalonica the dendrite (†c. 540), commemorated on this same day and likewise associated with Thessalonica — the coincidence of name, day and city is exact and the two are constantly conflated in day-listings; nor with David of Hermopolis, nor with David and Tarichan of Georgia.