Demetrius of Samarina was a Greek monk of the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries who was put to death under Ali Pasha, the Ottoman ruler of Ioannina, in 1808. By tradition he was born in the village of Samarina, high in the Pindos mountains of the Epirus region, and entered monastic life in a monastery of his homeland, where the synaxarion relates that he wore down his body with fasting.
In 1808 Ali Pasha suppressed an insurrection associated with the priest Euthymios Vlakhavas. In its aftermath Demetrius left his monastery and traveled through the surrounding villages, preaching and consoling the Christian population. Ali Pasha suspected that the monk too had been inciting rebellion. Demetrius answered that he sought only to strengthen the Christians in their faith and to urge them to keep the law, but the Pasha did not believe him and ordered him tortured.
The accounts of his martyrdom describe prolonged and severe torture: nails driven through his arms and legs, slivers of wood or bamboo forced beneath the nails of his hands and feet, and, by tradition, an iron band tightened around his forehead and suspension over fire. Finally he was sealed into a wall with only his head left exposed, so as to prolong his suffering. He is said to have survived ten days in the wall before he died on August 17, 1808, the day on which he is commemorated.
Tradition relates that a Muslim onlooker, moved by the monk's endurance, came to faith in Christ and was himself put to death. The French traveler and historian François Pouqueville, who was present in the region during these years, is reported to have recorded words spoken by the saint during his torture.
