Biography
Chrysi—also rendered Chryse or Zlata—came from Slatena in the region historically called Moglena, today the village of Chrysi in Almopia, northern Greece. The Church of Greece commemorates her on October 13 as a New Martyr: a Christian killed under Ottoman rule after the age of the early Roman persecutions.
Her received life was recorded in the New Martyrology associated with St. Nikodemos the Hagiorite. The synaxarion recounts that a Muslim man sought to force her to convert and marry him, and that pressure from captors and members of her family did not change her confession of Christ. It describes prolonged and extremely violent torture before her death in 1795. Those details belong to Orthodox hagiographic tradition and should be attributed to that tradition rather than presented as a modern forensic reconstruction.
The spiritual center of her story is not the violence itself but her refusal to exchange faith for safety. Orthodox devotion remembers her chastity, courage, and perseverance, while the village that bears her name keeps her annual feast and a church dedicated to her.
In 2026 the Holy Metropolis of Edessa, Pella and Almopia announced that remains discovered near the ruins of the old Dormition church at the Castle of Chrysi had been examined and were being received as the relics of St. Chrysi. Their solemn reception at her village church was scheduled for October 12, followed by her feast on October 13. Catholic Tourist reports this as the identification and act of veneration of the responsible Orthodox authority; it is not an independent Catholic judgment or a claim of laboratory certainty beyond the published evidence.
How to read this pilgrimage
The Church of Saint Chrysi in her native village is the principal living shrine. Visit as a guest of the Greek Orthodox community, distinguish the Church’s received martyr account from independently documented history, and approach the relics as an Orthodox act of veneration rather than a spectacle. The nearby Castle of Chrysi provides important Byzantine and archaeological context but is not interchangeable with the parish shrine.
St. Chrysi the New Martyr, pray that all Christians may remain faithful to Christ with courage and charity.