New Martyr Unknown

Saint Michael the New Martyr

A New Martyr commemorated on this day; the surviving account preserves little beyond his name and martyrdom for the faith.

Feast Day

March 10

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Commemorated as

The Holy New Martyr Michael

Life

Saint Michael the New Martyr is commemorated in the Orthodox calendar on March 10. He belongs to the New Martyrs of the Ottoman period, Orthodox Christians who suffered death rather than renounce their faith under Muslim rule, and is remembered chiefly for the witness of his martyrdom; little narrative detail survives in the daily synaxarion under this commemoration.

By the standard identification carried in the Orthodox calendars, this March 10 commemoration is that of the New Martyr Michael of Agrapha, also called Michael Maurudisos and known as Michael of Soluneia, who was put to death at Thessalonica in the mid-sixteenth century. The Orthodox Church in America's synaxarion lists his name and feast but records no biography, so the fuller details are drawn from other calendars and are reported here with the caution the sources themselves observe.

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Identity and Origin

The saint is associated with Agrapha, a mountainous district of central Greece, and bears the bynames Maurudisos and 'of Soluneia.' He is numbered among the New Martyrs, the Orthodox faithful of the Ottoman centuries who were executed for refusing to abandon Christianity for Islam.

Because the commemoration is thinly documented, the calendars preserve his name, region, and the fact of his martyrdom rather than a developed account of his life. The anchor record leaves his region, era, and century unstated, and this profile does not supply details beyond what the calendar sources attest.

Martyrdom

According to the calendar entries, Michael was burned alive at Thessalonica for his refusal to convert to Islam. The year is given as either 1544 or 1547; one tradition records the execution on March 21, 1547, while the Great Euchologion assigns the feast to March 10, 1544, which accounts for the difference between his commemoration date and the date of death cited in some sources.

His feast in the Orthodox calendar is kept on March 10.

Sources: OCA Synaxarion (oca.org), Lives of the Saints