Our Holy Father, the Martyr Onuphrius of Hilandar
Commemorated January 4
The New Martyr Onuphrius, in the world Matthew, was born in Bulgaria in Gabrovo in the Trnovo diocese. Matthew became angry with his parents one day, and said he wished to become a Moslem. Unfortunately, he was overheard by the Hagarenes, who wished to take him away. He regretted these words as soon as he uttered them, and he went to Athos to the Hilandar monastery as soon as he came of age. There he became a monk with the name Manassas.
Tormented by his conscience, Manassas decided to suffer for Christ. Therefore, he asked the blessing of his Elder Nicephorus to pursue the path of martyrdom. The Elder tonsured him a schemamonk with the name Onuphrius. After four months of intense prayer, fasting, and spiritual struggle, he went with Gregory of the Peloponnesos to the island of Chios. There the Monk Martyr Onuphrius openly confessed the Christian Faith, for which he was seized and subjected to cruel tortures.
After the torture they beheaded him and threw him into the sea. He died in 1818 at the age of thirty-two.
Troparion
In thee, O father, was manifestly preserved what is in the image of God, for having taken up the cross, thou didst follow Christ and by thine own example hast taught that the flesh is to be despised as transient, but that particular care should be bestowed on the soul as a thing immortal; wherefore together with the angels rejoiceth also thine, O ascetic Onuphrius, spirit.
Kontakion
As a keeper of fasts pious and skilled, as an honoured voluntary martyr and one that in the desert led the life of a hermit, — let us worthily extol in hymns Onuphrius, the ever to be praised; for he hath trodden the serpent under his feet.
Source: Crkveni Kalendar
