Philoctemon of Sebaste

Holy Martyr Philoctemon of Sebaste is one of the forty martyrs of Sebaste in Armenia, Christian soldiers from Cappadocia, who died for Christ around the year 320. The page says nothing of him in particular, but tells the passion of them all.

Licinius, co-⁠ruler with Constantine the Great, did not keep the law of freedom of faith and began a persecution in his lands. The commander Agricolaus imprisoned the forty soldiers because they would not sacrifice to the idols; in prison they prayed, and a voice told them that whoever endures to the end will be saved. Both the praise and the chains and the judgment of the official Lysias came to nothing, and the stones thrown at them missed their mark.

On a winter night they were led out, stripped, onto a frozen lake, and on the shore a bath was heated for whoever should renounce. One ran toward it and died on the threshold. Then a light came, the ice melted, and the guard Aglaius saw a crown above each martyr. He counted thirty-⁠nine, declared himself a Christian and went into the water, to make up the number of forty. In the morning the persecutors broke the bones of their legs. The mother of the youngest, Meliton, carried him on her shoulders after the wagon while he was still breathing. The bodies were burned and the bones thrown into the water, but Bishop Peter of Sebaste, after the martyrs appeared to him in a dream, gathered them and buried them with honour.

The names in the list, among them Philoctemon, are: Kyrion, Candidus, Domnus, Hesychius, Heraclius, Smaragdus, Eunoicus, Valens, Vivianus, Claudius, Priscus, Theodulus, Eutychius, John, Xanthias, Helianus, Sisinnius, Angius, Aetius, Flavius, Acacius, Ecdicius, Lysimachus, Alexander, Elias, Gorgonius, Theophilus, Domitian, Gaius, Leontius, Athanasius, Cyril, Sacerdon, Nicholas, Valerius, Severian, Hudion, Meliton and Aglaius. The saints are commemorated on 9 March in the old style, which is 22 March in the new, and on that day the fast is relaxed and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served.