Sabbas of Stagira
The Holy Venerable New Martyr Sabbas of Stagira, of the Monastery of Konstamonitou
Venerable Martyr · New Martyr · b. late 18th century — d. 1821
Commemorated 10 June — Killed near the Monastery of Zographou in the Chalkidiki rising (1821)
Sabbas was a monk of the Athonite Monastery of Konstamonitou, born at Stagira in Chalkidiki in the later eighteenth century, who was killed in 1821, in the year of the Greek rising, while travelling from his monastery in the direction of Zographou, together with a lay servant of the house. The account preserved by the monk Dositheos says that he had foreseen his death, having been warned in a vision that enemies would kill him, and that it fell out as he had been shown. His memory is a recent one in the calendar: his first service was celebrated in 1988, and his first icon painted for that occasion. He is kept on June 10.
Stagira and Konstamonitou
He was born at Stagira in the Chalkidiki — the peninsula on which the Holy Mountain stands, and, as the Greek notices never fail to observe, the birthplace of Aristotle — in the later eighteenth century; no year is transmitted. He went to Mount Athos and was tonsured at the Monastery of Konstamonitou, the small house on the western slope dedicated to St Stephen the Protomartyr, which stands between Zographou and the sea. Of his monastic life nothing particular is recorded.
1821
In 1821 the rising against Ottoman rule spread from the Morea to the north, and in May of that year Emmanuel Papas raised Chalkidiki, with Athonite support; the Ottoman counter-offensive under Mehmed Emin Pasha broke the rising by the end of the year and fell heavily on the Mountain, which was garrisoned, fined and half-emptied of its monks for a decade afterwards.
It was in this that Sabbas was killed. He had set out from Konstamonitou in the direction of the Monastery of Zographou, accompanied by a layman in the service of the monastery, and the two were taken and put to death on the way. The account, which comes from the monk Dositheos, adds that Sabbas had received beforehand a vision warning him that enemies would kill him, and that he went on knowing it.
A late commemoration
Nothing was done liturgically about his memory for a century and a half. His first service was celebrated in 1988, and the first icon of him was painted for that celebration by the iconographer Christos Karapanis. He is thus one of the many Athonite and Chalkidiki new-martyrs of the Ottoman centuries whose cultus was established late, from monastic memory and manuscript accounts, and whose place in the printed calendars is correspondingly recent.
Feast and commemoration
June 10 (church date; Old Calendar civil June 23), a local Athonite and Greek commemoration, kept at Konstamonitou and in the Chalkidiki, and carried in the modern Greek calendars. It is absent from the Slavonic books and from the older printed synaxaria alike, being a commemoration established in 1988. He is also numbered among the New Martyrs of the Ottoman period and the saints of the Holy Mountain in their collective commemorations.
Hymns
Apolytikion — Tone 4 (common of a venerable-martyr)
Thou didst make of the ascetic struggle a preparation for the contest, O father Sabbas, and having been forewarned of thy end thou didst go to meet it without turning aside; wherefore, having been offered on the Mountain as a sacrifice acceptable to God, thou dost intercede for our souls.
Iconography
Sabbas is painted as an Athonite monk-martyr: in the black rason and koukoulion, bearded, holding the cross of martyrdom in the right hand, with the Monastery of Konstamonitou or the peak of Athos behind him. His iconography is entirely modern — the first icon of him was painted by the iconographer Christos Karapanis for the celebration of 1988 — and there is by definition no pre-1900 image of him, since his cultus postdates the period by a century and a half. That modern icon is a living artist's copyrighted work and is therefore not stored here: the licence would have to come from the iconographer himself, and no free licence has been granted. No image accompanies this entry.
Disputed questions
- Martyr, or casualty of a rising? The distinction matters and the sources do not draw it. Sabbas was killed in a military reprisal during an armed national insurrection, not after a trial for confessing Christ, and no summons to apostatise is recorded. The Greek tradition nevertheless styles him ὁσιομάρτυς, venerable-martyr, on the ground on which the whole class of Ottoman-era neomartyrs is constituted — that the killing was done by the Muslim power and fell on him as a Christian monk. The classification here follows the calendars, per the project's constitution; the question is recorded, not resolved.
- The date. June 10 is the day of the commemoration as fixed for the 1988 service; whether it is the day of his death is not stated in the sources consulted.
- The companion. The lay servant of Konstamonitou who died with him is not named and is not separately commemorated.
- Not to be confused with the other saints named Sabbas — Sabbas the Sanctified (December 5), Sabbas the Goth (April 12), Sabbas Stratelates (April 24), Sabbas of Serbia (January 14), and Sabbas of Storozhevsk (December 3) — nor with the several other Athonite new-martyrs of the same name.
- Sources are thin. This entry rests on the modern Greek calendar summaries of the account of the monk Dositheos; the account itself was not available for consultation, and no critical edition of it is known to this collection. Flagged accordingly.