Although Saint George Karslides was ordained a Presbyter and Spiritual Father at the age of 24 in 1925, after he had escaped being executed by the communists, when he was 28 years old in 1929 he fled communist Russia, and to do so safely, he escaped the communists by disguising himself as a layman - shaved and in a suit with a hat. He arrived in Thessaloniki, after a difficult journey, on October 19, 1929, and from there went to settle in Sipsa of Drama, where he served as a priest the rest of his life.