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Chrysostomos (Kalafatis) of Smyrna

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[[Image:Hrisostomos.jpg|thumb|Chrysostomos of Smyrna]]
Metropolitan '''St. Chrysostomos (Kalafatis) of Smyrna''' (birth name ''Kalafatis'', in Greek ''Καλαφάτης'', 1867-1922) , was the diocesan [[bishop]] a Metropolitan of the city Greek Orthodox population of Smyrna (now Izmir in Turkey) between 1910 and 1914 and again from 1919 to his death in Asia Minor during 1922. He was notable for his charity work and following for having been deeply involved in the First World Warpolitics of his day. He was lynched and brutally murdered by a Turkish mob when incited by Nurettin Pasha in Smyrna on [[September 9]] 1922 soon after the forces Turkish army regained control of the Young Turks burned city at the end of the city in Greco-Turkish War (1919-1922 ) and sent the Greek population into exile. His [[Feast day|feast day]] is celebrated on [[August 27]].
==Life==
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>
 
Metropolitan Chrysostomos was survived by his nephews, among whom Yannis Elefteriades, who witnessed the arrest and execution of his uncle, having found shelter by his side after the killing of his parents. He escaped to Lebanon, where today, his grandson Michel Elefteriades is a well known Greek-Lebanese politician, artist and producer.
 
Michel Elefteriades is a Greek-Lebanese politician, artist, producer and businessman born on June 22, 1970 in Beirut, Lebano...
is a well-known Greek-Lebanese politician, artist and producer
The metropolitan is generally considered an [[ethnomartyr]] of the Orthodox Church and the Greek nation, and he was [[canonization|canonized]] in 1993, with the Feast day of 27th August.
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