Sansalas

Sansalas was a Gothic priest of the fourth century who served the Christians of Carpathian Dacia and is named in the martyrdom account of the Holy Martyr Sabbas the Goth. He is named in the Romanian Paterikon and venerated by the faithful, without synodal canonization; the sources available to us give no day of commemoration.

According to the Paterikon, he was probably born in the land of Buzău, of Gothic parents who had been brought to Christianity by Cappadocian missionaries. From youth he received the gift of priesthood and became shepherd of a village on the river Buzău, anciently called Mousaios. He brought many pagans to the faith, especially Goths. His closest disciple was Sabbas, the young man who helped him at the services by chanting psalms.

His zeal and courage are told in the Letter of the Church of God in Gothia to the Church in Cappadocia, written to accompany the relics of Saint Sabbas, sent there around 373-374 at the request of Saint Basil the Great. In the persecution of the Gothic king Athanaric in 372, the priest and his cantor were seized and tortured for Christ. Sansalas was set free, while Sabbas was drowned in the river Buzău on 12 April 372.

The priest took his disciple's relics and, on the advice of the presbyters of Dacia, sent them in secret to Bishop Ascholius, south of the Danube, from where they reached Cappadocia. The Paterikon says he served the Church for many more years, bringing other Daco-⁠Romans and Goths to the faith, and that he reposed toward the end of the fourth century.