The Martyr Saint Cosmas the Protos

St Cosmas was a brother of the Monastery and lived at the ‘Kareon’ Skete. He was Protos of the Holy Synaxis at the time when the supporters of the union with the Roman Catholics, following the ecclesiastical policy of the Emperor Michael VIII Palaeologus and the Patriarch John Beccus, were pressing the monks of Mount Athos to support the union.

Like St Euthymius and his 12 monks and many others, particularly from the Iveron and Zographou Monasteries, who, because of their opposition to the union, suffered persecution and a martyr’s death, St Cosmas was put to death by hanging at his skete. His martyrdom was confirmed by the disinterment of his remains, carried out by the Holy Community in 1981, on the spot described by tradition, where there was always a lamp burning. His feast day is on 5 December³.