Gideon of Karakallou was a monk of the Monastery of Karakallou on Mount Athos who was martyred at Tyrnavos in Thessaly on December 30, 1818, during the period of Ottoman rule. He is venerated among the New Martyrs, and the synaxaria honor him as the only registered saint associated with Karakallou. His feast is kept on December 30. (The Orthodox Church in America's brief notice records only that he was a monastic martyr of Karakallou; the fuller account below follows the Greek synaxaristic tradition.)
According to that tradition, he was born Nicholas in Kapourna, near Makrynitsa of Pelion, to parents named Avgerinos and Kyratza, and was the eldest of eight children. When he was about twelve his family relocated to Gierme under the pressure of Ottoman taxation, and as a youth he worked in a relative's grocery store in Velestino. There a Turk named Ali drew him into his household service, and Ali's son had him circumcised and converted to Islam under the name Ibrahim. After two months the young man repented and wept bitterly over his apostasy, fled to his father, and eventually made his way to Mount Athos.
At Karakallou he confessed his fall, was received again through Holy Chrismation, and was tonsured a monk with the name Gideon. The tradition relates that he lived as a monk for some thirty-five years, distinguished for obedience, humility, and asceticism, and was given the duty of caring for the church as sacristan or ecclesiarch. In his later years the desire for martyrdom kindled within him, and with the blessing of the fathers he left the Holy Mountain and returned toward the region where he had once denied Christ.
Coming to Velestino and other places, he openly confessed Christ before the Ottoman authorities. He was seized, brought to Tyrnavos, and there, refusing to renounce his faith, his hands and feet were severed by order of the governor; he died of his wounds on December 30, 1818. He was first buried at Tyrnavos, and in 1837 portions of his relics were translated to Karakallou on Mount Athos, while his head is kept in the Metropolitan Church of Panagia Phaneromeni in Tyrnavos.
