Blaise of Sebaste

Who they were

Little is certain of Blaise except his faith in Christ, which he kept until he was beheaded after terrible tortures. Tradition makes him a native of Sebaste in Armenia who studied medicine and, as its bishop, cared for his people's bodies as well as their souls. In the persecution that followed the quarrel between the emperors Licinius and Constantine, he hid in a cave on Mount Argeus, guiding his Church by secret messages.

Arrested by the governor Agricola's guards, on the way to judgement he met a mother whose small son was choking on a fish bone; he blessed the child, who was healed at once. He was martyred, and part of his relics, being taken to Rome in 723, came ashore at Maratea after a storm.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: Blaise has been honoured as a martyr since the early Church. The healing of the choking child comes from tradition and was never formally examined; it is remembered each 3 February by the blessing of throats with two crossed candles.

Why that counted as sanctity

Blaise was a physician of bodies and souls who stayed with his flock in persecution and died rather than deny Christ.