Saint Cosmas icon, Handcrafted Russian Orthodox icon St Cosmas of Aetolia

The holy, glorious and right-victorious New Hieromartyr and Equal-to-the-Apostles Kosmas Aitolos (also known as Cosmas Aitolos, and St Cosmas the Aetolian) was born in 1714 in Mega Dendron, Aitolia, Greece, to a father who was a weaver and a devout mother.
He attended public schools, but was tutored by an archdeacon. He taught and then attended a school on Mt. Athos. He became a monk and later a priest at Philotheou Monastery where he remained for two years. After a time, he felt a calling to do missionary work in Greece, especially in the remote areas where there was a lack of churches and priests for the many unbaptized adults. As an aftermath of four centuries of Turkish oppression in Greece, Kosmas received the patriarchal blessing in 1759 to travel wherever needed, for however long, with complete independence, to breathe life back into Christianity in Greece.