FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTEIA

FORTY MARTYRS OF SEBASTEIA. Commemorated on 9 March, the feast traditionally reckoned the end of winter by the monastic typicon of Mt. Athos (q.v.). These martyrs (q.v.) were forty Christian soldiers put to death, according to the “Life,” at the order of the Emperor Licinius in the second decade of the 4th c. They were stripped and forced to stand in a freezing lake until death took them. The cult of the Forty Martyrs was encouraged by Gregory of Nyssa and Ephrem the Syrian (qq.v.), among others.