Euthymios (Agritellis)

Saint Euthymios of Zela the Ethno-Hieromartyr, , born Eustratios Agritellis, 1876–1921, was the last resident bishop of the Diocese of Zela, near Amasia, Western Pontus, which he served from June 12, 1912, until his death on May 29, 1921, during the period of the Greek genocide.

His memory is celebrated on May 29 as well as on the Sunday before the Exaltation of the Holy Cross. |group=note

In the meantime, he was tonsured a monk by the Hegumen of the monastery, Archmandrite Anthimos (Georgiellis), who gave him the name Euthymios. For the next eight years he practiced asceticism in the Leimonos Monastery. |group=note From then on the activities of the Bishop of Zela changed from efforts for progress and revival, into struggles for relief and retrenchment. He transitioned untiringly from place to place, oftentimes in danger and tried by deprivations and malaise, in order to provide his assistance to those he found in despair or in exile, and to the distressed Orthodox Christians. A similar mass female suicide took place in Eprius in 1803, known as the Dance of Zalongo.|group=note

In April 1917 a large force of the Turkish army sent by Refet Bele Pasha and commanded by Mehmet Ali encircled the monastery of the Theotokos near the village of Otkaya (Otkayada), on the west side of Mount Neltes (Nebyan), where the cave called Maara (or the Virgin or Magara) was located, encircling 650 women and children and 60 armed rebels. After six days of resistance most of the besieged were killed or committed suicide. It was the irony of fate that his conviction from the high court in Ankara arrived after his death, with the sentence being the 'Independence of death'. Nevertheless, his dead body was hanged in the central square of the town together with the others who had been sentenced to death including politicians, businessmen, journalists and religious figures of the local Greek community. #tag:ref|"...sentenced to death 177 Greeks who were executed. Included among them was Zelon Euthemios, assistant bishop of Amassea, who died in prison from typhus...he ordered even the dead to be hanged with the others. Also sentenced to death in absentia were 44 Greeks..."