The thousands of Neo-Martyrs during the dark years of Ottoman rule were simultaneously National Martyrs, because for the Greek Orthodox, faith and Fatherland are inseparable. They martyred themselves for the holy faith of Christ and the freedom of their homeland. One of the most heroic Neo-Martyrs and National Martyrs was Saint Neo-Martyr Demetrios from Samarina.
He was born around the end of the 18th century in the mountainous villages of Samarina, in Grevena, where the slavery of the Ottoman tyrants was somewhat limited due to the inaccessibility of the terrain. Because of this, the idea of revolution and liberation from inhuman Turkish slavery had developed particularly in those areas, and revolutionary movements had emerged.
We do not know much about his origins or his childhood. Everything we know is owed to the French consul in Ioannina, traveler, and Philhellene François Pouqueville, who had met Demetrios in Samarina and witnessed his final tortures and his martyred death. We assume he was born and raised by pious parents, who inspired in him faith in Christ as the only savior and redeemer of the world. It seems they also inspired and cultivated in his soul the supreme idea of freedom and human dignity, which the heterodox and barbarian tyrants brutally trampled upon.
From a young child, he admired monks and longed to follow the monastic life. Saint Cosmas of Aetolia (1714-1779), who had traveled many times to the villages of Samarina, had a great influence on him. In fact, Demetrios followed him and became his disciple. Thus, when he reached adulthood, he decided to become a monk. He lived in the old Holy Monastery of Agia Paraskevi of Samarina, which operated until 1921.
During the time Demetrios was monastically practicing in his monastery of repentance, significant bands of armatoloi (militiamen) and klephts had developed in the surrounding high and inaccessible mountains, who fought and dealt critical blows to the Turks. Demetrios, although a monk, joined them, participating in operations against the tyrants and helping them in various ways. Let us not forget that our monasteries, during the difficult times of slavery, were hearths where downtrodden Greeks found refuge and where revolutions were fueled.
In 1808, the notorious Ali Pasha of Ioannina, known for his cruelty, under whose jurisdiction the Samarina region also fell, suppressed the failed revolution of the heroic cleric Efthymios Vlachavas (Papa Vlachavas) in Thessaly, which had sown fear and terror among the subject rayah (tax-paying subjects). After this, Demetrios decided to imitate his teacher, Saint Cosmas of Aetolia, to leave the monastery, proclaim the word of God, and support the frightened Greeks.
He traveled to the villages and preached the Orthodox faith with passion. He focused his preaching on the Kingdom of God, thus wanting to encourage the subject rayah, giving them hope for future liberation from the miseries of this life. With this preaching, he left implications for their future liberation from the Ottoman rulers. However, the actions of the monk Demetrios did not take long to become known. Some thought that when he spoke of the Kingdom of God, he meant a worldly type of theocracy. Therefore, they went to Ali Pasha and slandered him, claiming he was inciting the Greeks to revolution. Thus, they sent a detachment, arrested him, and sent him to Ioannina.
He was presented to the ferocious Ali, who interrogated him personally, asking him to reveal his revolutionary accomplices. To reveal the bishops and priests of the region who supposedly supported Papa Vlachavas and the revolutionary movements. He also asked him to reveal the connections of Papa Vlachavas's revolutionary movement with Russia. Demetrios refused to answer, constantly invoking the name of Christ, whom he begged to help him in this difficult situation—to endure the martyrdom and the pains that would follow.
The tyrant ordered him to remove the icon of the Virgin Mary that he wore on his chest, but he refused. Then Ali became enraged with fury and handed him over to the executioners to undergo the most horrific tortures, hoping that through unbearable pain he would break the Martyr's resolve. Indeed, he said to him: "Let us see now if your Virgin Mary will save you!"
They removed the icon from his chest and spat in his face. After beating him, they split reeds and made sharp points, which they drove into the nails of his hands and feet. Then they took an iron vice and squeezed his head. He endured the tortures with unprecedented heroism and patience, without crying out, only murmuring the name of Christ and the Virgin Mary. Then, in an inexplicable way, the vice broke! Afterward, they threw him into prison.
The next day, they lit a fire and hanged him upside down, burning his hair, beard, and the skin of his head. But because they did not want him to die quickly, so they could enjoy more of his tortures and hoping he would speak of his alleged accomplices, they laid him on the ground, placed a plank on his chest, and began to jump on him, breaking his bones.
Seeing that the executioners that he was still enduring, they went to Ali Pasha to receive orders on how to finish him off. He devised another way for him to die slowly and agonizingly: to tie him to a post and build him into a wall, leaving only his head exposed, so that his martyrdom would be prolonged. In fact, they gave him minimal food to prolong his life and, with it, his unbearable martyrdom. The Martyr endured ten days without uttering a cry of pain, praying to God to endure until the end.
On the tenth day, he surrendered his soul to the Lord. His last words were: "Return, my soul, to your rest, for the Lord has been kind to you!" It was August 18, 1808.
However, a Muslim, seeing the heroism and bravery of Demetrios, believed in Christ and was baptized, taking the name Georgios. To avoid the wrath of the Turks, he fled to Agrinio. But men of Ali Pasha located him, arrested him, subjected him to torture, and without faltering or denying Christ, he also met a martyred death. Indeed, as Pouqueville testifies, the tortures were so horrific that he could not describe them! The Neo-Martyr Georgios is one of the many Neo-Martyrs who have the designation "from the Hagarenes" (converts from Islam)!
The memory of Neo-Martyr Demetrios is celebrated on August 18. Our great national poet Aristotelis Valaoritis dedicated the famous epic poem "The Memorials" to the heroic Fr. Efthymios Vlachavas and the Neo-Martyr Demetrios. As for Pouqueville, he noted the following regarding the martyred death of Neo-Martyr Demetrios: "The martyrdom and the revolution of Vlachavas prepared the triumph of a frail mortal, who had only prayer and gentleness as weapons. One of the servants of Christ who are destined to support the weak in the storms of the world, and whose blood, mixed with the blood of the warrior, brought back through martyrdom the honor of the Christian name in its first light. The monk Demetrios of Samarina."