The Three Athonite New Martyrs
Euthymius, Ignatius and Acacius, three monks of the Holy Mountain who went out under Ottoman rule to confess Christ before the Turks and were beheaded within two years of one another; their relics were gathered to the Skete of Saint Anna and they are commemorated together on May 1.
Within three years, three monks of Mount Athos left the Holy Mountain to confess Christ openly under Ottoman rule and were beheaded for it — Euthymius and Ignatius in 1814, Acacius at Serres in 1816. Each had been prepared for it in the same way: by a spiritual father who did not send them out lightly, and by a period of fasting, confession and communion before they went.
The new-martyr tradition of the Ottoman centuries is easy to misread as a rush toward death. What the accounts of these three record is the opposite — men who had, in some cases, denied Christ under pressure and went back to unsay it, in the one place and before the one authority where the unsaying would cost them everything.
Their relics were kept on the Holy Mountain, and the three are commemorated together on May 1.