Barsabias

Venerable Martyr Barsabias was an abbot and missionary who was killed in Persia in the year 342, in the time of the great persecution of Shapur II. He was a disciple of Eugenius (called by the Easterners Abus, that is, "Our Father"), a disciple of the great Anthony. Travelling to the East, Eugenius founded a large monastery near Nisibis, from which he sent monastic colonies throughout Persia, where in the fourth century there were many monasteries. His disciples completed the conversion of Syria and brought many Persians and Saracens to the right faith. Barsabias was one of these disciples and an abbot in Persia, with ten monks under him, whom he trained with great care in the way of perfection.

His zeal made the persecutors mark him among the first for slaughter. He was seized at the beginning of Shapur's great persecution and charged before the governor of the province with working to abolish the religion of the Magi in Persia. With his ten monks he was led in chains to Astahara, near the ruins of Persepolis, where the governor lived. The governor racked his brain to invent the cruellest kinds of torment: their knees were crushed, their legs broken, their arms, sides and ears cut and torn without mercy, their eyes beaten, and their faces swollen with blows. The martyrs remained unshaken. Barsabias and his companions are commemorated on 20 October (new style); Western calendars count the abbot and eleven monks put to death by Shapur II.