Candidus of Sebaste

Holy Martyr Candidus of Sebaste is one of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, Christian soldiers killed by the frost of an icy lake in the winter of the year 320 for confessing Christ. They are commemorated on 22 March (new style, 9 March old style), a day on which the strictness of Great Lent is relaxed and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served.

In the year 313 Constantine the Great issued the law of freedom of faith; his co-⁠ruler Licinius signed it too, but in his lands the persecution continued. About 320, in Armenian Sebaste, a Roman army was quartered in which forty Christian soldiers from Cappadocia served. The commander Agricolaus wanted to force them to sacrifice to idols, but they refused. They were led bound to the lake near the city, stripped, and set on the ice for the night, while on the shore a bath was heated as a temptation. All night they encouraged one another, singing hymns. Toward morning one rushed to the bath and fell dead, and the guard Aglaius, seeing a heavenly light above the martyrs, undressed and declared himself a Christian, joining the thirty-⁠nine. The next day the tormentors broke their legs, burned them and cast the bones into the river. After three days the martyrs appeared to Bishop Peter, who gathered their bones and buried them with honour.

Their names have been preserved: Kyrion, Candidus, Domnus, Hesychius, Heraclius, Smaragdus, Eunoicus, Valens, Vivianus, Claudius, Priscus, Theodulus, Eutychius, John, Xanthias, Helianus, Sisinius, Angius, Aetius, Flavius, Acacius, Ecdicius, Lysimachus, Alexander, Elias, Gorgonius, Theophilus, Domitian, Gaius, Leontius, Athanasius, Cyril, Sacerdon, Nicholas, Valerius, Philoctimon, Severian, Chudion, Meliton and Aglaius.