Chrysostomos of Smyrna

Saint Chrysostomos of Smyrna

Chrysostomos Kalafatis (1867–1922) (Greek: Χρυσόστομος Καλαφάτης), known as Saint Chrysostomos of Smyrna,^[1] Chrysostomos of Smyrna and Metropolitan Chrysostom, was the Greek Orthodox bishop of Smyrna (Izmir) between 1910 and 1914, and again from 1919 to his death in 1922. He was born in Triglia (today Zeytinbağı, Turkey) in 1867, and was killed by a lynching mob during the taking of Smyrna by Turkish troops at the end of the Greco-Turkish War of 1919–1922. He was declared a martyr and a saint of the Eastern Orthodox Church by the Holy Synod of the Church of Greece on 4 November 1992.^[2]

Early life

Kalafatis studied at the historical Theological School of Halki from the age of 17.^[2] He became the Metropolitan of Drama in 1902 and the Metropolitan of Smyrna in 1910.^[2]

Return to Smyrna

He had not been in good terms with the Ottoman/Turkish authorities and he was displaced. When the Greek army seized Smyrna in 1919, at the beginning of the Greco-Turkish war, Kalafatis was reinstated to his office as bishop.

Lynching

On 9 September (Julian style – 27 August) 1922, soon after the Turkish army had moved into Smyrna, a Turkish officer and two soldiers took Chrysostomos from the office of the cathedral and delivered him to the Turkish commander-in-chief, Nureddin Pasha. The general decided to hand him over ^[3] to a Turkish mob who murdered him.

According to French soldiers who witnessed the lynching but were under strict orders, at the point of their commanding officer's revolver, not to intervene:

"The mob took possession of Metropolitan Chrysostom and carried him away... a little further on, in front of an Italian hairdresser named Ismail ... they stopped and the Metropolitan was slipped into a white hairdresser's overall. They began to beat him with their fists and sticks and to spit on his face. They riddled him with stabs. They tore his beard off, they gouged his eyes out, they cut off his nose and ears."^[4]

Bishop Chrysostomos was then dragged (according to some sources^[5], he was dragged around the city by a car or truck) into a backstreet of the Iki Cheshmeli district where he died soon after.^[4]

Family survivors

Chrysostomos Kalafatis was survived by his nephews, among whom Yannis Elefteriades, who witnessed the arrest and execution of his uncle, having found shelter by his side after the killing of his parents.^{[citation needed]} He escaped to Lebanon, as a refugee, where today, his grandson Michel Elefteriades is a well-known Greek-Lebanese politician, artist and producer.^{[citation needed]}

See also

• Relief Committee for Greeks of Asia Minor
• Armenian Genocide
• Halki seminary

Notes

1. ^ Αγιος Χρυσόστομος Σμύρνης – Η Ραφήνα τιμά τη μνήμη του 85 έτη από τον μαρτυρικό θάνατό του Kathimerini.gr, 10 November 2007. (Greek)
2. ^ ^{a b c} Αγ. Χρυσόστομος Σμύρνης Municipality of Triglia (Greek)
3. ^ [George Horton,The Blight of Asia,ISBN 960-05-0518-7,p.126]
4. ^ ^{a b} Milton 2008, pp. 268–269.
5. ^ Aggelomatis, Chr, "Chronicle of Great Tragedy" (The Epic of Asia Minor), Estia, 1963, pp. 231-2

References

• Akcam, Taner, A Shameful Act: The Armenian Genocide and the Question of Turkish Responsibility. Metropolitan Books. (2006)
• Milton, Giles (2008). Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance (Paperback ed.). London: Sceptre; Hodder & Stoughton Ltd. ISBN 9780340962343. http://books.google.com/?id=n4B4NwAACAAJ&dq=isbn%3A9780340962343. Retrieved 2010-07-28. 

External links

• Chrysostomos (Kalafatis) of Smyrna, at Orthodox Wiki.

Persondata
Name	Chrysostomos Of Smyrna
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	1867
Place of birth
Date of death	1922
Place of death