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Chrysostomos (Kalafatis) of Smyrna

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Horton refers to "Metropolitan Chrysostom" several times: "on one occasion I was present at an important service in the Orthodox Cathedral, to which the rep­resentative of the various powers, as well as the principal Greek authorities, had been invited. The [Hellenic] High-Commissioner [for Ionia, Aristidis Stergiadis, which Horton spells 'Sterghiades'] had given the order that the service should be strictly religious and non-politi­cal. Unfortunately, Archbishop Chrysostom (he who was later murdered by the Turks) began to introduce some politics into his sermon, a thing which he was extremely prone to do. Sterghiades, who was standing near him, interrupted, saying: 'But I told you I didn’t want any of this.' The [[archbishop]] flushed, choked, and breaking off his discourse abruptly, ended with, 'In the name of the Father, Son and Holy Ghost, Amen,' and stepped off the rostrum." [http://www.hri.org/docs/Horton/HortonBook.htm] Marjorie Housepian (Hovsepian) Dobkin remarks in her book ''The Smyrna Affair'' that "The Archbishop's murder was reported to Admiral Dumesnil aboard the French flagship."</ref>
After the defeat of the Greek Army in Anatolia and the reoccupation of Smyrna by the Turks, Chrysostomos refused to leave Smyrna and abandon his flock. The metropolitan was abducted by a mob incited by Nureddin Pasha on [[September 9]], 1922. According to eyewitness accounts, he was tied to a barber chair, cruelly tortured, and put to death.<ref>"According to the French observers,...'The mob took possession of Metropolitan Chrysostom and carried him away,...a little further on, in front of an Italian hairdresser named Ismail...they stopped and the Metropolitan was slipped into a white hairdresser's overall. They began to beat him with their fists and sticks and to spit on his face. They riddled him with stabs. They tore his beard off, they gouged his eyes out, they cut off his nose and ears.' The French soldiers were disgusted by what they saw and wished to intervene, but their commanding officer was under orders to remain strictly neutral. At the point of a revolver, he forbade his men from saving the metropolitan's life. Chrysostom was dragged into a backstreet in the Iki Cheshmeli district, where he eventually died from his terrible wounds." ''Milton, Giles. '''Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance'''. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London, 2008. pp.268-269.''</ref>
The metropolitan is generally considered an [[ethnomartyr]] of the Orthodox Church and the Greek nation, and there have been calls for his [[canonization]].
==SourceSources==
*[http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Chrysostomos_of_Smyrna&oldid=99080324 Wikipedia entry "Chrysostomos of Smyrna"]
*Milton, Giles. ''Paradise Lost: Smyrna 1922: The Destruction of Islam's City of Tolerance''. Hodder & Stoughton Ltd., London, 2008.
==Footnotes==
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