John of Shumen
The Holy New Martyr John the Goldsmith of Shumen, in Bulgaria
New Martyr · b. c. 1784 — d. 14 May 1802, at Shumen
Commemorated 14 May — Martyrdom at Shumen, 1802
John — called Raiko in Bulgarian, his lay name — was an eighteen-year-old goldsmith of Shumen in northern Bulgaria who was martyred on 14 May 1802. A Turkish girl from the household opposite his workshop tried to draw him into a liaison; failing, she accused him of attempting to force her. The court gave him the choice that broke or crowned so many of the Balkan new-martyrs: apostatise to Islam and marry the girl, or be beaten to death. He answered that he would rather die than deny Christ, and after prolonged and savage torture was beheaded. His martyrdom was written down by the hieromonk Nikephoros of Chios, the great recorder of the neomartyrs.
The goldsmith of Shumen
He came from the city of Shumen (Greek Soumna, Turkish Şumnu) in the Bulgarian lands, then under Ottoman rule, and worked at the trade of goldsmith — one of the crafts in which Christians of the Balkans were prominent, and one that set a young man in daily public view. The account describes him as handsome in appearance and virtuous in life, and gives his age as eighteen.
The accusation
Across the street from his workshop lived a Turkish family with a young daughter, who tried repeatedly to attract him. When she could not, she slandered him: she charged him with having attempted to rape her. He was taken before the judge, and the judgement handed down was the standard instrument of Ottoman pressure on Christian youths in such cases — that he must either turn Turk and marry the girl, or be beaten to death. There was no third option offered and no examination of the charge.
Martyrdom
John answered that he preferred to die rather than deny Christ. The tortures that followed were, in the words of the account, dreadful and barbarous: he was beaten without mercy, his body was torn, his wounds were burnt with lighted candles — and at last, unmoved, he was beheaded, on 14 May 1802.
Veneration and later cultus
His Martyrion was composed by the hieromonk Nikephoros of Chios (†1821), the teacher and hymnographer who gathered and wrote the passions and services of a great many of the neomartyrs of the Ottoman period; it is from Nikephoros' collection that his memory passed into the Greek synaxaria. He is counted among the company commemorated in the Synaxis of the New Martyrs who suffered after the fall of Constantinople, and is honoured in Bulgaria as one of the martyrs of the national church under the Ottomans; the Orthodox Church in America lists him on this day as "New Martyr Raiko (John) of Bulgaria."
Feast and commemoration
May 14 (church date; Old Calendar civil May 27), the day of his martyrdom, kept in Bulgarian and Greek usage and listed by the Orthodox Church in America. He belongs also to the general commemoration of the New Martyrs. The service written by Nikephoros of Chios is used where it is available; elsewhere he is sung with the common of a martyr. Depending on the year the day falls late in the Paschal season or after Pentecost.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr John, O Lord, in his contest received an incorruptible crown from Thee our God; for possessing Thy strength he cast down the tyrants and shattered the feeble insolence of the demons. By his intercessions save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
John is painted according to the settled type of the Balkan new-martyr of the Ottoman period: a beardless youth, shown at his true age, in the civil dress of his own century and nation — a belted long coat or a short jacket over a shirt, sometimes a fez or a cap — rather than in the timeless tunic and mantle of the ancient martyrs. He holds the cross in one hand and the palm of victory in the other; the sword of his beheading may lie at his feet, and, as a goldsmith, the tools or the scales of his trade are occasionally added. Where he is painted in Bulgaria he appears among the martyrs of the nation; where in Greek churches, in the ranks of the neomartyrs. No pre-1900 icon of him has been located for this collection.
Disputed questions
- His name. Bulgarian sources call him Raiko, Greek sources John; the two are ordinarily explained as his familiar and his baptismal name respectively, and both are used in the calendars, sometimes together.
- His birthplace and age. The Greek text gives Shumen and the age of eighteen, from which the birth-year of about 1784 is inferred; no independent record of his family survives.