Ahmet the Calligrapher was a seventeenth-century

Ottoman Empire The Ottoman Empire, * ; is an archaic version. The definite article forms and were synonymous * and el, Оθωμανική Αυτοκρατορία, Othōmanikē Avtokratoria, label=none * info page on book at Martin Luther University) ...

official venerated as a

Christian saint In religious belief, a saint is a person who is recognized as having an exceptional degree of holiness, likeness, or closeness to God. However, the use of the term ''saint'' depends on the context and denomination. In Catholic, Eastern Ort ...

. According to Christian beliefs he converted to Christianity and was martyred on 3 May 1682; thus he is commemorated as a

martyr A martyr (, ''mártys'', "witness", or , ''marturia'', stem , ''martyr-'') is someone who suffers persecution and death for advocating, renouncing, or refusing to renounce or advocate, a religious belief or other cause as demanded by an externa ...

on this day. The only mentions of him are in Christian

hagiographies A hagiography (; ) is a biography of a saint or an ecclesiastical leader, as well as, by extension, an adulatory and idealized biography of a founder, saint, monk, nun or icon in any of the world's religions. Early Christian hagiographies might ...

Life

Ahmet lived in

Constantinople la, Constantinopolis ota, قسطنطينيه , alternate_name = Byzantion (earlier Greek name), Nova Roma ("New Rome"), Miklagard/Miklagarth (Old Norse), Tsargrad ( Slavic), Qustantiniya ( Arabic), Basileuousa ("Queen of Cities"), Megalopolis ( ...

during the 1600s and was an official in the Ottoman Turkish government before his conversion."About Saint Ahmet (Ahmed)", Greek Boston
/ref> Ahmet owned a Russian concubine whom he allowed to attend one of the Greek Orthodox

church Church may refer to: Religion * Church (building), a building for Christian religious activities * Church (congregation), a local congregation of a Christian denomination * Church service, a formalized period of Christian communal worship * C ...

es in

. In time Ahmet began to notice that when his Russian concubine returned from church she was far more gracious and loving than she was before going. Intrigued by this, Ahmet obtained permission to attend the Ecumenical Patriarch's celebration of the Divine Liturgy in Constantinople. Due to his status and identity, his request was not refused, and he was given a discreet place at the Church. During the Divine Liturgy, Ahmet saw that when the Ecumenical Patriarch blessed the faithful with his trikiri and dikiri his fingers 'beamed' light onto the heads of the faithful Christians, but not his own. Amazed by this

miracle A miracle is an event that is inexplicable by natural or scientific lawsOne dictionary define"Miracle"as: "A surprising and welcome event that is not explicable by natural or scientific laws and is therefore considered to be the work of a divi ...

, Ahmet requested and received Holy

Baptism Baptism (from grc-x-koine, βάπτισμα, váptisma) is a form of ritual purification—a characteristic of many religions throughout time and geography. In Christianity, it is a Christian sacrament of initiation and adoption, almost ...

. Whatever happened during this period, one day a group of arguing officials asked Ahmet for his opinion of their dispute, to which he replied that there is nothing better than the Christian faith."Saint Ahmed the Calligrapher", Pemptousia, 24 December 2016
/ref> For this he was put before the Sultan and

qadi A qāḍī ( ar, قاضي, Qāḍī; otherwise transliterated as qazi, cadi, kadi, or kazi) is the magistrate or judge of a '' sharīʿa'' court, who also exercises extrajudicial functions such as mediation, guardianship over orphans and mino ...

. After torture and a few chances to return to Islam he was subsequently beheaded on 3 May 1682. He is celebrated on 24 December/6 January in

Eastern Orthodoxy Eastern Orthodoxy, also known as Eastern Orthodox Christianity, is one of the three main branches of Chalcedonian Christianity, alongside Catholicism and Protestantism. Like the Pentarchy of the first millennium, the mainstream (or "canonical") ...

under the name of Christódoulos (

Greek Greek may refer to: Greece Anything of, from, or related to Greece, a country in Southern Europe: *Greeks, an ethnic group. *Greek language, a branch of the Indo-European language family. **Proto-Greek language, the assumed last common ancestor ...

: ''Χριστόδουλος'').

Sources

References

Bibliography

*Yurij Maximov, "Svjatye Pravoslavnoj Tcerkvi, obrativshiesja iz islama." Moscow, 2002
"Hagiographies of the Saints"
24 December,

Justin Popović Justin Popović ( sr-cyr, Јустин Поповић, ; 6 April 1894 – 7 April 1979) was a Serbian Orthodox theologian, archimandrite of the Ćelije Monastery, Dostoyevsky scholar, writer, an advocate of anti-communism and a critic of the p ...

"Hagiographies of the Saints"
3 May,

Ahmed the Calligrapher (ΑΠΟ ΤΟ ΒΙΟ ΤΟΥ AΓΙΟΥ ΑΧΜΕΤ ΤΟΥ ΝΕΟΜΑΡΤΥΡΟΣ.)

Saint Ahmed the Calphas the Neomartyr (Άγιος Αχμέτ ο Κάλφας ο Νεομάρτυρας)
{{in lang, el Calligraphers from the Ottoman Empire Christian saints killed by Muslims People executed for apostasy from Islam Civil servants from the Ottoman Empire Converts to Eastern Orthodoxy from Islam Christian martyrs Eastern Orthodox Christians from Turkey Eastern Orthodox saints 1682 deaths Turkish former Muslims People executed by the Ottoman Empire by decapitation