Saint Apostle the Young

Apostolos the New , was born in Agios Lavrentios of Magnesia, Pelion, Greece, in 1667 A.D. His father was Costas Stamatiou and his mother was Melo . At the age of 15 he became an orphan. In 1682 A.D., he went to Istanbul, where he worked in a tavern.

Life

Uprising According to the Greek Orthodox Church, Apostolos had already been in Constantinople for four years when the inhabitants of his homeland were oppressed under heavy taxation. Because of this, he decided to turn to the Sultan's commissioners and taught them how to reduce the tax burden. Apostolos helped his brethren set up their own committee of residents who would represent them. This was a success, but Voivode did not accept the documents of his sultan's commissioners, rejecting them as forgeries. Voivode arrested three of the residents' committee and took them to Istanbul himself, where he demanded they be imprisoned for high treason.

The struggle for Islamization

After a failed attempt to escape, Voivode tried to convert Apostolos to Islam by circumcising him, but Voivode was unsuccessful.

After Apostolos declared that he was a Christian and his faith would not change, he was led to senior religious officials where they themselves tried to make him change his faith by giving him wealth and glory. Apostolos did not renounce his Christian faith. He only told them: "Don't waste your time, do whatever it takes but do it quickly. Whatever death you give me, I will willingly accept it for the sake of my Christ. So don't be late. Do you want to burn me? Let me gather the wood and prepare the fire. Do you want to hang me? Let me prepare the loop with my own hands. Do you want to behead me? Give me the sword and I will sharpen it as needed." After they didn't achieve anything, the vizier finally ordered his beheading. was led before dawn to a location near Golden Horn where he waited for the executioner to behead him. The executioner first hit him three times in the neck with his scythe, then grabbed him by the hair and beheaded him. Apostolos died at the age of 19. Books were written about his life state that after his execution, the execution squad saw from afar a large crowd going to his dead body. Believing that they were Christians, the men ran to the site but could see nothing. Only his dead body was there and no one else. After they threw his body into the sea, they brought his head to the vizier as proof of his execution.