Our Holy Father, the New Martyr Ignatius
Commemorated October 20
From Zagora in Bulgaria, that famous Zagora that has given the Church so many holy ascetics and martyrs, he lived in asceticism in the skete of St John the Forerunner on Athos. He voluntarily put himself into the hands of the Turks to be tortured for Christ, and was hanged in Constantinople on October 8th, 1814. His relics have wonderworking power, and his head is preserved in the monastery of St Panteleimon.
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 Ignatius, 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 Ignatius, the ever to be praised; for he hath trodden the serpent under his feet.
Source: Crkveni Kalendar
