Listed 10 sub titles with search on: Religious figures biography for wider area of: "WEST GREECE Region GREECE" .
PATRA (Town) ACHAIA
Born at Patrae, Greece,
about 860; was, like all the eminent men of that time, a disciple of Photius.
He became Archbishop of Caesarea
early in the tenth century, and is reckoned one of the most scholarly theologians
of the Greek Church.
He is the compiler of the oldest extant Greek commentary (scholia)
on the Apocalypse, for which he made considerable use of the similar work of his
predecessor, Andrew of Caesarea.
To his interest in the earliest Christian literature, caught perhaps from the
above-named Andrew, we owe the Arethas Codex, through which the text of the Greek
Christian Apologists has, in great measure, reached us. He is also known as a
commentator of Plato and Lucian; the famous manuscript of Plato. taken from Patmos
to London was copied by order
of Arethas. Other important Greek manuscripts, e.g. of Euclides, the rhetor Aristides,
and perhaps of Dio Chrysostom, are owing to him.
The latest known date of his life is 932.
Thomas J. Shahan, ed.
Transcribed by: John Fobian
This extract is cited June 2003 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
(Following URL information in Greek only)
MEGA DENDRO (Village) ETOLOAKARNANIA
1714 - 24/8/1779
Commemorated August 24
Seventeen centuries after the eminent St. Paul travelled across Greece,
a solitary man of God traversed the sandy country from border to border, sea to
sea, and island to island in a magnificent religious tour de force which stoked
the fires of Christianity and the flickering hopes of a people straining under
the yoke of Turkish oppression and despairing of a return to their ancient culture
after nearly four centuries of brutality. This rare specimen of Hellenic Christianity
was named Kosmas, a man whose devotion to God and country brought about a resurgence
of the Christian spirit of Greece
and anticipated the revolution which was to cleanse this proud country of the
oppressors with which it had too long been infested.
St. Kosmas was not only a priest but a prophet, scholar, patriot,
and miracle-worker as well, and each of these to a degree that merited sainthood.
The beginnings of Kosmas were inauspicious enough; he hailed from a village called
Mega Dendron, Aitolia, where he was born in 1714, the son of a simple weaver whose
wife was extremely devout and who undoubtedly influenced her son in his selection
of a religious career. He was baptised Konstas and attended public schools, thereafter
to be tutored by a family friend, Archdeacon Ananias. After spending some time
as a teacher, Konstas decided to attend a school at the Monastery
of Vatopedi on the Holy Mountain
of Athos, after which he entered the Monastery
of Philotheou where he was tonsured a monk and given the name Kosmas. In rapid
succession he became a deacon and then priest.
Kosmas had made up his mind to do missionary work, and he could think
of no better place to do so than in his homeland, particularly in the remote corners
of the rugged peninsula where the lack of churches and flight from persecution
had dimmed the light of Christianity. He was determined to revitalise the Christian
spirit of every isolated village of Greece
and to bring back to the forlorn the age-old Hellenic pride which the Muslims
had ground into the dust. He prevailed upon Patriarch Seraphim II to give him
a carte blanche to travel wherever he may be needed for whatever period of time
necessary for his mission, and as a preacher at large was given a patriarchal
blessing to carry out his noble purpose without interference and with complete
independence of action. In some of the more remote villages, where no priest had
been seen for years, Kosmas found adults who had not been baptised, a situation
which he remedied and which gave him added impetus in his crusade. When word of
his valiant missionary zeal reached his old monastery, one of his fellow monks
saw fit to make public Kosmas’ prophetic powers. Some of his prophecies
the people of the time could not comprehend, for Kosmas is not only on record
as having predicted that people would be able to converse with each other even
though they were miles apart (the telephone), but he also foresaw in the eighteenth
century that man would devise a means of flying, and while in flight, unleashing
a powerfully destructive force. Over a period of twenty-five years of undiminished
zeal, Kosmas travelled not only throughout Greece
and its beautiful islands, but he even journeyed through neighbouring Albania.
His prodigious feats in the name of the Lord included the founding
of over, 200 schools, charitable institutions, and small churches in rural areas
where itinerant priests could conduct the sacred liturgies as often as possible.
Wherever he preached he had a habit of planting a cross, as a result of which
his crosses dotted the countryside and served as reminders to passersby that somebody
cared what happened to them and that God had not forsaken them.
St. Kosmas had trod on Muslim toes, and in the area of Ioannina
he was arrested on spurious charges of conspiracy, found guilty, and hanged on
24 August 1779. On 21 April 1961 he was canonised a Saint by the Church -- although
he had been revered as one since his death in ceremonies presided over by the
late Patriarch Athenagoras who had always admired the gallant Kosmas.
St. Andrew, the Apostle, son of Jonah, or John, was born in Bethsaida
of Galilee. He was brother of Simon Peter. Both were fishermen, and at the beginning
of Our Lord's public life occupied the same house at Capharnaum. From the fourth
Gospel we learn that Andrew was a disciple of the Baptist, whose testimony first
led him and John the Evangelist to follow Jesus. Andrew at once recognized Jesus
as the Messias, and hastened to introduce Him to his brother, Peter. Thenceforth
the two brothers were disciples of Christ. On a subsequent occasion, prior to
the final call to the apostolate, they were called to a closer companionship,
and then they left all things to follow Jesus.
Finally Andrew was chosen to be one of the Twelve; and in the various
lists of Apostles given in the New Testament he is always numbered among the first
four. Like the majority of the Twelve, Andrew is not named in the Acts except
in the list of the Apostles, where the order of the first four is Peter, John,
James, Andrew; nor have the Epistles or the Apocalypse any mention of him. As
one of the Twelve, Andrew was admitted to the closest familiarity with Our Lord
during His public life; he was present at the Last Supper; beheld the risen Lord;
witnessed the Ascension; shared in the graces and gifts of the first Pentecost,
and helped, amid threats and persecution, to establish the Faith in Palestine.
When the Apostles went forth to preach to the Nations, Andrew seems
to have taken an important part, but unfortunately we have no certainty as to
the extent or place of his labours. It is generally agreed that he was crucified
by order of the Roman Governor, Aegeas or Aegeates, at Patrae
in Achaia, and that he was
bound, not nailed, to the cross, in order to prolong his sufferings. The cross
on which he suffered is commonly held to have been the decussate cross, now known
as St. Andrew's, though the evidence for this view seems to be no older than the
fourteenth century. His martyrdom took place during the reign of Nero, on 30 November,
A.D. 60); and both the Latin and Greek Churches keep 30 November as his feast.
St. Andrew's relics were translated from Patrae
to Constantinople, and deposited
in the church of the Apostles there, about A.D. 357. When Constantinople
was taken by the French, in the beginning of the thirteenth century, Cardinal
Peter of Capua brought the relics to Italy and placed them in the cathedral of
Amalfi, where most of them still remain. St. Andrew is honoured as their chief
patron by Russia and Scotland.
J. Macrory, ed.
Transcribed by: Christine J. Murray
This extract is cited June 2003 from The Catholic Encyclopedia, New Advent online edition URL below.
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