13th century
Georgian monks of the Iveron Monastery on Mount Athos who, refusing to accept union with Rome, were put to death — some drowned, some hanged — during the Latin pressure of the thirteenth century.
The Holy Venerable Monastic Martyrs of Iveron Monastery
This commemoration honors the Georgian monks of the Monastery of Iveron on Mount Athos who were put to death rather than submit to union with the Church of Rome. During the period of Latin pressure on the Holy Mountain in the thirteenth century, the fathers of Iveron condemned the doctrines urged upon them and held firm in the Orthodox faith. According to the synaxarion, some were drowned and others hanged, and the community remembers them together as confessors and martyrs.
The synaxarion relates that when papal forces pressed the monasteries of Athos to accept the Latin teaching, the monks of Iveron refused and anathematized the doctrine put to them. By the tradition preserved in the Orthodox calendar, a large number of the elder monks were forced onto a ship that was then sunk, while younger brethren were carried off and sold into slavery. They are commemorated on May 13, gathered with the Georgian fathers of Iveron.
Georgian monks had settled on Mount Athos from the mid-tenth century, and Iveron was their principal house. In the thirteenth century, in the wake of the Crusades and Latin influence in the East, pressure was brought upon the Athonite monasteries to accept union with Rome. The fathers of Iveron, by the synaxarion's account, rejected these demands outright and anathematized the teaching urged on them.
The tradition records that the monks who refused union were killed in several ways. A large company of the older monks was driven onto a vessel which was sent out and sunk, while the younger were deported and sold into slavery. Orthodox sources differ on the precise years, placing the events variously within the later thirteenth century. The community keeps their memory as that of monastic martyrs who died for the confession of the faith.
Named group; OCA also lists John, George, and Gabriel of Iveron as monastic-martyrs, gathered here as one commemoration.