Holy Zographou Martyrs

Life

When Emperor Michael Palaeologus concluded the infamous Union of Lyons with the Pope, in order to obtain from the Pope assistance against the Bulgarians and the Serbs, the monks of the Holy Mountain sent the emperor a protest against that union and counsel to reject it and return to Orthodoxy. The Pope sent an army to aid Michael. And that Latin army entered the Holy Mountain and committed such barbarities as the Turks never committed in five hundred years. Having hanged the Protos and killed many monks in Vatopedi, Iveron and other monasteries, the Latins attacked Zographou. The blessed Abbot Thomas previously announced to the brethren that whoever wished to be saved from the Latins should flee the monastery, and whoever desired a martyr's death should remain. And so twenty-six men remained: twenty-two monks with their abbot, and four laymen who were monastery workers. All of them shut themselves in the pyrgos (tower) of the monastery. When the Latins came, they set fire to the tower, and in the flames these twenty-six heroes of Christ found a martyr's death. While the tower burned they sang Psalms and the Akathist to the Most Holy Theotokos, and they surrendered their holy souls to God on October 10, 1283. That same year, in December, the impious Emperor Michael came to a miserable end, against whom the Serbian King Milutin had risen in defense of Orthodoxy.