Icon of Saint Kosmas the Aetolian

Icon of Saint Kosmas the Aetolian with handmade silk screen printing on a polished gold background in various dimensions.

All images of the Orthodox calendar are made in any size.

Celebration 24 August

Cosmas the Aetolian (often called also Cosmas the patro-Cosmas) is a saint and neo-martyr of the Orthodox Church and the Greek Nation (ethnomartyr). He was one of the most enlightened personalities of Hellenism, who were active during the years of the Ottoman occupation.

Cosmas of Aetolo ‘s worldly name was Constantas, while the details of his surname and place of birth are not known with precision.

He began to receive elementary education from childhood next to the deacon Gerasimos Loutsikas^[, while at about the age of 20 he began to be taught “grammar” by the hierodeacon Ananias, working at the same time as a sub-teacher.

A few years later he joined the Athoniada school, at the time of the great flourishing of the school under the direction of Eugene Voulgaris. He would subsequently enter Mount Athos, where he would remain for 17 years.

Cosmas the Aetolian left Mount Athos around the end of the 1760s and moved to Constantinople to get a blessing from Patriarch Seraphim II, in order to start his missionary work. The reason that led him to this decision was, by his own admission, missionary zeal.

He passed from village to village, stopping in each place for two days. He preached a first sermon on the evening of his arrival, a second the next morning and a third on the same day in the evening. In these sermons his purpose is to summarize the basic truths of the Church, while showing the practical implications of Her truth.

His sermons, however, as it was logical, brought reactions. And while the Turks did not seem to be hostile to him, according to his words, the Jews, because of the great economic losses they had suffered, but also because of the generally anti-Jewish traditions of the church fathers that Cosmas followed, traditions from the time of Jesus Christ, were looking out for him.

The death of Saint Kosmas of Aetolo occurred on August 24, 1779. But the cause of his death remains obscure. Certainly the Jews seemed quite unhappy about the transfer of the bazaar from Sunday to Saturday, a transfer caused by Father Kosmas.

• 100% guaranteed transaction!
• 100% money back guarantee!
• Immediate delivery to the products we have in stock.