KARPOS AND ALPHAEUS, THE APOSTLES

ALEXANDER THE NEOMARTYR OF THESSALONICA

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MAY 26

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KARPOS AND ALPHAEUS, THE APOSTLES. St. Dionysios writes of Karpos that he never began a liturgy without first seeing a heavenly vision. He was one of the seventy apostles sent out after Pentecost and traveled with the Apostle Paul in Greece. Paul also appointed him as Bishop of Varna in Thrace. Once when Karpos prayed for the death of a pagan and an apostate, Jesus appeared to him saying that he was ready to be crucified again for sinful men. He was martyred late in his ministry. Alphaeus was the father of two of the twelve apostles, James and Matthew the Evangelist.

 

ALEXANDER THE NEOMARTYR OF THESSALONICA. Alexander was an eighteenth century apostate who defected from Christianity. Even though his parents had moved from Thessalonica to Smyrna in Asia Minor to protect him from hedonistic influences, he fell in with dervishes there who swayed him to Islam. He even took a pilgrimage of Mecca, the holy city of Islam. When he came to himself, he repented through fasting and prayer. He exhorted many towards Christianity paradoxically dressed as a Muslim. He appeared before the magistrate of his own accord, determined to vindicate his apostasy as a martyr. He eloquently defended Christianity before a group of Muslim dignitaries and for this he was imprisoned and tortured. His battle cry was that he was born a Christian and that he would die a Christian. He was beheaded.

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