Nicholas of Metsovo
The Holy New Martyr Nicholas of Metsovo, who suffered at Trikkala
New Martyr · b. at Metsovo in Epirus, late 16th century — d. 16 May 1617, burnt alive at Trikkala in Thessaly
Commemorated 16 May — Martyrdom by fire in the market place of Trikkala
Nicholas — surnamed Basdanis — was a poor young man of Metsovo in Epirus who, working for a Muslim baker in Trikkala in Thessaly, was worn down by the daily pressure of his employers and denied Christ, accepting Islam. Conscience gave him no rest. He went home to Metsovo, was reconciled to the Church, and lived quietly, carting wood down to Trikkala to sell; but he judged that repentance was not enough where the denial had been public, and after taking counsel with his spiritual father at Meteora — who warned him against rashness and then armed him for what he intended — he went back to Trikkala, provoked the exposure he had been avoiding, and confessed before the kadi that he had been a Muslim and had returned to Christ. A fire was built in the market place and he was burnt alive in it on 16 May 1617. His skull, bought from his executioners by a Christian and hidden in a wall, was recovered the next year and given to the monastery of Varlaam at Meteora, where it is venerated.
Metsovo and the denial
Metsovo, the Vlach-speaking mountain town on the pass between Epirus and Thessaly, was poor, and its young men went down to the plains for work. Nicholas Basdanis, born there of Orthodox parents whom the account calls devout and destitute, went to Trikkala and found a place as assistant to a Muslim baker.
He was young, alone and dependent, and the men around him pressed him continually to change his religion — the ordinary attrition by which conversions were obtained under Ottoman rule, without violence and without much subtlety. He gave way, and embraced Islam.
Repentance
The account is clear that nothing external forced the next stage: it was his own conscience. Unable to bear what he had done, he left Trikkala, returned to Metsovo, and was received back into the Church. He made his living carrying wood down to Trikkala to sell — which meant going regularly into the town where he was known as a Muslim, a risk he managed for a time by an accommodation: a Muslim barber who knew his old employer questioned him about his changed appearance and dress, and Nicholas bought his silence with a promise of a yearly supply of firewood.
He did not think himself absolved. In the reasoning of the new-martyrs of the Turkish period — which the Church has honoured while insisting that martyrdom is never to be provoked lightly — he held that a public denial of Christ required a public confession of him, and that only martyrdom would answer for what he had done. He went to his spiritual father at Meteora. The elder did what a good confessor does: he cautioned him strongly against acting out of impulse or scruple, made him examine the resolve, and, once satisfied of it, prepared him with confession and Communion.
Martyrdom
Nicholas then returned to Trikkala and broke his bargain with the barber, telling him he would bring him no more wood. The barber, enraged, denounced him to the authorities as an apostate from Islam — which under Ottoman law was a capital matter.
Before the kadi he made no evasion: he said openly that he had accepted Islam, that he had repented of it, and that he had returned to the faith of Christ. The judge tried persuasion and then threats, and got nothing. A great fire was lit in the market place of Trikkala, and Nicholas was thrown into it and burnt alive, on 16 May 1617.
The relic
A Christian of the town afterwards paid a large sum to obtain the martyr's skull from those who had charge of the remains, and, not daring to keep it openly, concealed it inside a wall. In 1618 it was discovered — the account says by a light seen at the place — by a man named Melandros, who gave it to the monastery of Varlaam at Meteora, where the relic of the new-martyr is kept and venerated.
Feast and commemoration
May 16 (church date; Old Calendar civil May 29). He is honoured above all at Metsovo, his birthplace, at Trikkala, where he suffered, and at the monastery of Varlaam at Meteora, which holds his relic; the commemoration is carried in the Greek new-martyrologies and in the OCA calendar. A proper service exists in modern Greek collections, but it is under copyright and is not reproduced here.
Hymns
Troparion — Tone 4 (common of a martyr)
Thy martyr Nicholas, 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 prayers save our souls.
Original translation from the Greek
Iconography
Nicholas is painted as a young layman new-martyr: beardless or with the first growth of a beard, in the short belted tunic and cloak of a working man of the Ottoman Greek lands, holding the cross of martyrdom in the right hand and sometimes a palm in the left. Because he died by fire, the narrative type shows him standing upright in flames in an open market place with turbaned figures around him, in the manner in which the new-martyrs of the Turkish period are regularly shown; at Meteora he is painted with his relic or with the monastery of Varlaam beside him. As a saint of the seventeenth century whose iconography developed largely after 1800, no pre-1900 image of him has been located for this collection.
Disputed questions
- The day. May 16 is given by the tradition followed here, and is the day of the OCA and of the calendars derived from it. Some Greek sources place the martyrdom or its commemoration on May 17; the year 1617 is constant.
- The name. He is Nicholas of Metsovo in the calendars and Nicholas Basdanis (Βασδάνης) in the local tradition of Metsovo and Meteora.
- Not to be confused with the other new-martyrs named Nicholas of the Ottoman period, particularly Nicholas the Grocer of Karpenisi (†1672) and Nicholas of Chios; nor, of course, with Nicholas the Wonderworker of Myra. The entry for Nicholas the Grocer in this collection already notes the risk of confusion with him by name. Closest of all is Nicholas of Sofia (†1555, May 17), likewise born in Epirus and likewise put to death for refusing Islam — the two feasts falling on consecutive days, and some Greek lists entering this saint on May 17 as well. They are distinct men and their cases differ at the decisive point: Nicholas of Sofia never denied Christ, having been circumcised by stealth while insensible with drink, whereas Nicholas of Metsovo denied him, repented, and went back to die for him.