Saint John the New Martyr of Bulgaria

John, the New Martyr of Bulgaria, was born in Bulgaria in 1775, during the period of Ottoman rule over the Balkans and Asia Minor. According to the synaxarion, as a boy he fell in with Muslim companions and was led to renounce Christ and to embrace Islam. He is numbered among the new martyrs of the Ottoman era, and is commemorated on March 5.

By tradition, when he was about sixteen years old John was stricken with remorse over his denial of the faith. He fled to Mount Athos and entered the Great Lavra, where he lived a strict monastic life for three years under the direction of an Elder. His conscience continued to trouble him over his earlier apostasy, and with his Elder's blessing he resolved to confess Christ publicly in the Ottoman capital, accepting that such a confession would cost him his life.

The synaxarion relates that John traveled to Constantinople and entered Hagia Sophia, which had been converted into a mosque. There he made the Sign of the Cross and recited Christian prayers aloud, openly declaring his return to Christ and his rejection of Islam. When he was ordered to renounce Christ, he answered, by the tradition, 'Without Christ, there is no salvation.' He was taken out to the courtyard and beheaded in 1784, at the age of nineteen.