Saint George Karslides the Confessor
Feast Date: 04/11
Saint George Karslides was born in 1901 AD. in Argyroupolis of Pontus (seat of the Holy Metropolis of Chaldia) and his baptismal name was Athanasios.
He was orphaned when he was young and his parents died on the same day. However, the signs of calling and grace were immediately revealed. Nurtured by his most pious mother with exemplary Pontic piety, as soon as he stood on his feet and began to speak he showed that he was different from other children and that he was devoted to God. Still a child, he prayed constantly, fasted and at the age of seven he went and worshiped the Virgin of Sumela. He became a novice monk at the age of nine.
His haircut in Munich took place in 1919 AD. at the age of 18 and was then ordained a Deacon.
During the tragic days of the persecution of the Church by the communists in Georgia, the young Hierodeacon was arrested as an “enemy of the people”, suffered imprisonment, humiliation, humiliation, public censures and unheard of tortures. He was even sentenced to death and shot, but was miraculously saved!
In 1925 AD he was ordained Elder and Spiritual, while in 1929 AD he came, after many adventures, to Sipsa (in the settlement of the Brigades of Drama) in Greece, where he lived for the last thirty of his fifty-eight years of life.
He was again sentenced to death in 1941 AD. from the orthodox invaders from the north and was miraculously saved again, to continue his Osiatic life until the day of his sleep, on November 4, 1959 AD.
Saint George, advising his spiritual children, emphasizes that they must fast properly, because fasting is an exercise for the Christian. It is wrong to fast, he said, one week at the beginning and one week at the end of the fast. On this topic he mentioned one day the following example: “When you are on a bridge and it is raining hard and you have a rope spread out and you start to gather it, because you are getting wet you don’t cut it to leave, but you wait to gather it all even if you get wet.
Fr. George also stressed that sponsors should not argue and that every Christian should baptize at least three children. The duty of the mind, he said, is to teach its children to go to church from a young age, to receive communion regularly, to follow the right path, to become good people and Christians.
Saint George was canonized in 2008 AD. under His Holiness and Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew in Drama.
