New Martyr John of Crete

John of Crete was a young Cretan layman who worked as a farmer at New Ephesus (Kusadasi) in Asia Minor and was martyred under Ottoman rule in 1811. He is counted among the New Martyrs who suffered for the Christian faith during the centuries of Turkish domination, and he is commemorated on September 15. By tradition his origins are placed in the Sphakia region of Crete.

According to the synaxarion, John was a young man engaged to be married. On August 29 he and two friends from Crete attended a festival held for the Feast of Saint John the Baptist. The visitors were ordered by the local authorities to pay the head tax, and when the Cretans refused a confrontation broke out in which one of the aga's men was killed and others were injured. John himself was not involved in the violence and afterward returned to his farm.

The brother of the slain Muslim, seeking revenge, had John arrested because he had been present when the killing took place. John was imprisoned for sixteen days, during which he was beaten and permitted no visitors. According to the account he refused repeated offers to embrace Islam, including the inducement of marriage to the daughter of the kadi. When his captors failed to move him, he was sentenced to death by hanging and executed on September 15, 1811.

The synaxarion relates that on the night of his death the martyr's body shone with a bright light. Three days later permission was granted to take down his remains, and he was buried in the courtyard of the church of Saint George.