Germanos of Patras
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Germanos (George Gotzias, known as Palaion Patron Germanos 1771-1826) was an Orthodox Metropolitan of Patras.
Germanos was born in Dimitsana, northwestern Arcadia, Peloponnese. Before his consecration as Metropolitan of Patras by Patriarch Gregory V, he had served as a priest and Protosyngellus in Smyrna.
[edit] Greek Revolution
According to an unfounded tradition, on March 25, 1821, he blessed a Greek flag at the Monastery of Agia Lavra and proclaimed the national uprising against the Ottoman empire. However, the Greek War of Independence had already been declared on February 21 by Alexandros Ypsilantis in Iaşi. Germanos himself mentions nothing relevant in his memoirs.
However, there are a few historians arguing that the core of this tradition might not be untrue, based on some personal archives of Greek revolution fighters maintaining that Germanos performed a doxology and administered an oath to some kocabaşıs and bishops of Morea on March 17, the day of celebration for the Agia Lavra Monastery. Yet, Germanos says in his memoirs that "those gathered decided not to give rise to suspicions and they took refuge to shelters, because they were afraid". What is sure is that they left knowing that a revolution was about to start. [1]
He died in 1826 at Messolonghi.
- ^ History of the Greek Nation, v. 12, p. 82
