You can help expand this article with text translated from the corresponding article in Greek. (February 2021) Click [show] for important translation instructions.
Content in this edit is translated from the existing Greek Wikipedia article at [[:el:Παλαιών Πατρών Γερμανός Γ΄]]; see its history for attribution.{{Translated|el|Παλαιών Πατρών Γερμανός Γ΄}} to the talk page. |
Germanos III of Old Patras (Greek: Παλαιών Πατρών Γερμανός Γʹ; 1771–1826), born Georgios Kontzias (Γεώργιος Κοντζιᾶς), was an Orthodox Metropolitan of Patras. He played an important role in the Greek Revolution of 1821, having diplomatic and political activity.
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 protosyncellusinSmyrna.
According to tradition and several written sources, on March 25 (6 April in the Gregorian calendar), the Feast of Annunciation, 1821, Bishop Germanos proclaimed the Greek national uprising against the Ottoman Empire and blessed the flag of the revolution at the Monastery of Agia Lavra.[1][2][3] Earlier, another revolt of the Greek War of Independence had also been declared on February 21 by Alexandros YpsilantisinIaşi, which was crushed by June 1821.
The Greek revolt was precipitated on March 25, 1821, when Bishop Germanos of Patras raised the flag of revolution over the Monastery of Agia Lavra in the Peloponnese. The cry "Freedom or Death" became the motto of the revolution.
On 25 March, Germanos gave the revolution its great symbol when he raised a banner with the cross on it at the monastery of Ayia Lavra.
The Greek uprising and the church. Bishop Germanos of old Patras blesses the Greek banner at the outset of the national revolt against the Turks on 25 March 1821. The solemnity of the scene was enhanced two decades later in this painting by T. Vryzakis….The fact that one of the Greek bishops, Germanos of Old Patras, had enthusiastically blessed the Greek uprising at the onset (25 March 1821) and had thereby helped to unleash a holy war, was not to gain the church a satisfactory, let alone a dominant, role in the new order of things.