Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

Who they were

Forty soldiers who openly confessed themselves Christians were condemned, in the persecution of Licinius after 316, to be left naked on a frozen pond near Sebaste in Lesser Armenia on a bitterly cold night. The earliest account is a homily by St Basil, preached only fifty or sixty years later.

One of them gave in and went to the warm baths prepared nearby for any who weakened. A guard saw a supernatural light over the others, declared himself a Christian, threw off his clothes and joined them, so that the number stayed forty. At dawn the bodies, still showing signs of life, were burned and the ashes thrown into a river; the Christians gathered the relics.

The miracles

There was never a formal cause: the Forty Martyrs have been honoured since the fourth century.

Why that counted as sanctity

Forty soldiers held together to the end in the cold, and when one fell away, God raised up another from among their guards to take his place.

Connected on this site

• Basil of Caesarea Saint
  “The earliest account of their existence and martyrdom is given by Bishop Basil of Caesarea (370–379) in a homily he delivered on their feast day.” — Wikipedia