Claudius of Sebaste

Holy Martyr Claudius of Sebaste is one of the forty martyrs of Sebaste in Armenia, Christian soldiers from Cappadocia who suffered for Christ around the year 320. The Azbyka page honours them all together and says nothing particular about him.

The law of freedom of faith of 313 had been signed also by the co-⁠emperor Licinius, but the persecution went on in his lands. The commander Agricolaus tried to force the forty Cappadocians to sacrifice to idols. They refused and were imprisoned, and at night they heard the voice of the Lord: he who endures to the end will be saved. Agricolaus flattered them and put them in chains, but Kyrion, the eldest, told him he had no such right, and the chains were removed. After seven days the dignitary Lysias came and tried them. The saints answered that they would give up not only their rank but their lives, since nothing is dearer than Christ. The stones thrown at them missed their mark and struck the man who threw them.

In winter the martyrs were stripped and made to stand on the ice of a lake, and a bath was heated on the shore to tempt them. All night they endured the frost, singing hymns, and only one of them ran to the bath and died. About the third hour of the night the ice melted and the water grew warm. The jailer Aglaius saw bright crowns over the martyrs, counted thirty-⁠nine, confessed himself a Christian and joined them, so that the number stayed whole. In the morning their shins were broken. The mother of the youngest, Meliton, urged her son to endure and, when he died, carried him on her shoulders behind the wagon and laid him among his companions. The bodies were burned and the bones thrown into the water. After three days the martyrs appeared in a dream to Peter, bishop of Sebaste, who buried their remains with honour.

The names of the forty have been preserved: Kyrion, Candidus, Domnus, Hesychius, Heraclius, Smaragdus, Eunoicus, Valens, Vivianus, Claudius, Priscus, Theodulus, Eutychius, John, Xanthias, Ilian, Sisinius, Angias, Aetius, Flavius, Acacius, Ecdicius, Lysimachus, Alexander, Elias, Gorgonius, Theophilus, Domitian, Gaius, Leontius, Athanasius, Cyril, Sacerdon, Nicholas, Valerius, Philoctimon, Severian, Chudion, Meliton and Aglaius. Their commemoration falls on 9 March in the old style, which is 22 March in the new style, a day on which the strictness of Great Lent is eased and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served.