Lysimachus of Sebaste

Holy Martyr Lysimachus of Sebaste is one of the forty martyrs of Sebaste in Armenia, Christian soldiers from Cappadocia who suffered around 320, under Licinius. The Azbyka page says nothing particular about him, only that he was among the forty.

The confession and the lake

Agricolaus, a pagan officer at Sebaste, imprisoned the forty brave Cappadocian soldiers because they refused to sacrifice. In prison they heard a voice that strengthened them; then the official Lysias ordered them stoned, but the stones missed their mark, and one struck Agricolaus in the face. At last they were stripped and left at night on a frozen lake, with a heated bath on the shore as a temptation. One of them fled to the bath and died. The guard Aglaius saw above each martyr a crown of light and, confessing himself a Christian, took the fallen man's place, so that the number stayed forty.

The end

In the morning their shins were broken, and the youngest, Meliton, was carried by his mother on her shoulders behind the cart until he gave up his soul. The bodies were burned and the bones thrown into the water, but after three days the martyrs appeared in a dream to Bishop Peter, who gathered and buried them. Their commemoration, one of the best loved in the Church, falls on 9 March in the old style, which is 22 March in the new; on this day the strictness of the Great Fast is relaxed and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served.