Saint Anthony, the Father of monks, was born in Egypt in 251 of pious parents who departed this life while he was yet young. On hearing the words of the Gospel: "If thou wilt be perfect, go and sell what thou hast, and give to the poor" (Matt. 19:21), he immediately put it into action. Distributing to the poor all he had, and fleeing from all the turmoil of the world, he departed to the desert. The manifold temptations he endured continually for the span of twenty years are incredible. His ascetic struggles by day and by night, whereby he mortified the uprisings of the passions and attained to the height of dispassion, surpass the bounds of nature; and the report of his deeds of virtue drew such a multitude to follow him that the desert was transformed into a city, while he became, so to speak, the governor, lawgiver, and master-trainer of all the citizens of this newly-formed city.

The cities of the world also enjoyed the fruit of his virtue. When the Christians were being persecuted and put to death under Maximinus in 312, he hastened to their aid and consolation. When the Church was troubled by the Arians, he went with zeal to Alexandria in 335 and struggled against them in behalf of Orthodoxy. During this time, by the grace of his words, he also turned many unbelievers to Christ.

Saint Anthony began his ascetic life outside his village of Coma in Upper Egypt, studying the ways of the ascetics and holy men there, and perfecting himself in the virtues of each until he surpassed them all. Desiring to increase his labors, he departed into the desert, and finding an abandoned fortress in the mountain, he made his dwelling in it, training himself in extreme fasting, unceasing prayer, and fierce conflicts with the demons. Here he remained, as mentioned above, about twenty years. Saint Athanasius the Great, who knew him personally and wrote his life, says that he came forth from that fortress "initiated in the mysteries and filled with the Spirit of God." Afterwards, because of the press of the faithful, who deprived him of his solitude, he was enlightened by God to journey with certain Bedouins, until he came to a mountain in the desert near the Red Sea, where he passed the remaining part of his life.

Saint Athanasius says of him that "his countenance had a great and wonderful grace. This gift also he had from the Saviour. For if he were present in a great company of monks, and any one who did not know him previously wished to see him, immediately coming forward he passed by the rest, and hurried to Anthony, as though attracted by his appearance. Yet neither in height nor breadth was he conspicuous above others, but in the serenity of his manner and the purity of his soul." So Passing his life, and becoming an example of virtue and a rule for monastics, he reposed on January 17 in the year 356, having lived altogether some 105 years.

Saint George, the man of few words and abundant faith, was born in 1810 in the village of Tsurkhli in the province of Grevena, which borders the province of Epirus in northwest Greece. He was orphaned of his parents at the age of eight, and as a young man was employed for eight years by Hatzi Abdullah, an officer of Imin Pasha. For some reason the local Moslems called him “Giaour Hasan” – infidel Hasan – rather than George, which led many to take him for a Moslem. In 1836 Imin Pasha became governor of Ioannina, taking with him his officer Hatzi Abdullah and George. In the same year George was betrothed to a very pious orphan named Helen; on the very day of their betrothal, a fanatical Turkish hodja from Ioannina recognized George, whom he had only known as “Giaour Hasan,” and rebuked him for marrying a Christian. Saint George succinctly answered that being a Christian, he sought a Christian as his wife. But the hodja accused him to the judge as an apostate from their religion. When Saint George was brought before him, he insisted that he was a Christian, and a friend of his fluent in Turkish came to his defense. So the judge sent George to the vizier; the vizier knew him to be in the employ of Hatzi Abdullah, who when summoned bore witness that he had always known George to be a Christian. The vizier had George registered with the court as a Christian.

On the following Sunday, the feast of Saint Demetrius, George and Helen were married. A son was born to them, whom they had baptized on the seventh of January; on the following Tuesday morning, George fell into a deep sleep all that day, from which his family were unable to rouse him even by shaking him. He awoke in time for supper, and when, instead of saying the usual blessing before the meal George said, “Glory to Thee, O God,” someone asked him why he said that, he answered, “Be glad that I know how to say even this much.”

The next day, Wednesday, he put on his best clothing, saying he was going to look for work, and before going out the door turned back and gazed with deep emotion on his son, his wife, and the rest of his family; when asked why he did this, he answered, “What difference does it make to you?” In fact he did this twice.

As he passed through the market the hodja who had accused him before accosted him again and made a ruckus; George was taken to the same judge, who now rejected the previous testimony that George was a Christian, and demanded that he become a Moslem or die. George’s whole reply was, “Do what you will.”

George was mocked by an apostate Christian, whom he valiantly rebuked, bringing the wrath of the authorities upon himself. He was questioned by the governor and then imprisoned; when brought again before the judge he briefly answered, “I am a Christian. I will die a Christian.” He was taken back to prison, his feet were confined in wooden stocks, and his body pressed down under a stone slab weighing well over a hundred pounds. Yet he slept so sweetly as if he were in his own bed at home, that when he awoke his fellow prisoners asked him how this was possible. He told them that he had felt no pain at all, and that he had a vision of a young man dressed in white who said to him in Turkish, “Fear not, George.”

George was brought before the judge a third time and answered his threat of the death-sentence with, “Do with me what you like. I’m not afraid. Whether you pass one sentence or a hundred, I was born a Christian, I am a Christian, and I am going to die a Christian.” Seeing the Saint’s courage, the judge decided to release him, but the clamor of the people calling out for his death forced him to carry out the sentence of death.

George passed a number of days in prison, in which many of the leading Christians interceded with the vizier for his release, but to no avail; and those who encouraged him in prison found him in no need of encouragement, but fearless and ready for death for Christ’s sake, and steadfast throughout the daily visits of the captors who urged him to deny his Faith, to whom he said nothing but, “I am a Christian.”

On a Monday, the feast of Saint Anthony the Great, January 17, 1838, at nine in the morning, five executioners came to George in the prison, and he accompanied them to the place of execution with joy as if he were flying rather than walking, and was hanged by them at the age of twenty-eight. His body was left hanging for three days, during which time a heavenly light shone on his body by night, and his holy relics remained incorrupt and fragrant, until the Christians received permission to bury them. Pieces of the rope with which he was hanged or of his clothing worked wondrous cures, and those who came to his tomb were healed. The Martyr appeared to his widowed young wife Helen and told her not to fear, because he would come to her often. Even the icon of him then commissioned to be painted worked miracles.

Saint George is but one of the innumerable multitude of New Martyrs of the Turkish Yoke who were simple laymen that lived their piety honestly without giving any special tokens of sanctity. Without long ascetic training, or the intention of becoming Martyrs, they were suddenly presented with the choice of denying Christ and living, or confessing Him and suffering a painful death, and were found to be Christians not in name only but in the depths of their souls, unto the very death.