Among the prominent and particularly highlighted victims of the Asia Minor Catastrophe is the hierarch of the sorrowful and glorious capital of Ionia, Metropolitan Chrysostomos Kalafatis of Smyrna (1867-1922). The new hieromartyr of the Church was an outstanding and charismatic personality of the early 20th century.

Although he lived all his life outside Greece, he emerged as a fiery figure of Hellenism that lived and thrived in the lands of the Ottoman Empire. The life of Chrysostomos of Smyrna could be described as novelistic. He was born and raised in Triglia of Asia Minor, studied and matured spiritually at the Theological School of Halki, served at the Patriarchal Court in Constantinople as Great Archdeacon, and shortly thereafter became Metropolitan of Drama and then Metropolitan of Smyrna.

He met his end at the age of only fifty-five, knowing a violent and dreadful death at the hands of the Turkish mob in Smyrna, something he could have undoubtedly avoided. With his voluntary martyrdom, Chrysostomos of Smyrna became a follower of the martyrs of faith and freedom…