Domnus of Sebaste

Holy Martyr Domnus of Sebaste is one of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, Christian soldiers from Cappadocia who suffered for Christ around the year 320, in the time of Licinius, the emperor who persecuted Christians in his part of the empire, although Constantine the Great had granted freedom of faith in 313.

The commander Agricolaus found the forty soldiers, all Christians, and demanded that they sacrifice to the idols. Because they refused, he led them bound to a frozen lake near Sebaste and set them naked on the ice in the winter night. On the shore a bath had been heated, so that anyone who renounced Christ could enter it. The martyrs strengthened one another and sang to God all night. One came out and died as soon as he entered the warmth, but the guard Aglaius, seeing light from heaven over the martyrs, confessed himself a Christian and entered the lake in his place.

In the morning the executioners broke their shins and burned the bodies on a pyre, throwing the remaining bones into the river. After three days the martyrs appeared to Bishop Peter of Sebaste, who gathered their remains and buried them with honour. Their names have been preserved, and Domnus is among them.

The commemoration of the Forty Martyrs is on 9 March, a day on which the Lenten fast is relaxed and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is celebrated.