Sisinius of Sebaste

Holy Martyr Sisinius of Sebaste is counted among the Forty Martyr Soldiers of Sebaste in Armenia, who suffered around the year 320 in the time of Licinius.

The Edict of Milan of 313 gave freedom of faith, but Licinius, co-⁠emperor of Constantine the Great, was a convinced pagan and resolved to uproot Christianity from his part of the empire, clearing his army of Christians before the war with Constantine. In Sebaste the commander Agricolaus had under him a band of forty brave men of Cappadocia, all Christians. When they refused to sacrifice to the gods, he shut them in prison, where, in prayer, they heard one night a voice: "He who endures to the end shall be saved." The next day Agricolaus tried to beguile them with praise and with the promise of the emperor's favour; when he resolved to put them in chains, the eldest, Kyrion, said, "The emperor has not given you the right to put us in chains," and the commander ordered them taken to the prison without chains. After seven days the high official Lysias arrived and judged them; the saints answered: "Take not only our soldiers' rank but our lives; nothing is dearer to us than Christ God." Lysias ordered them stoned, but the stones missed the mark, and the one Lysias threw struck Agricolaus in the face.

In winter, in hard frost, the soldiers were stripped, led to the lake near the town and held under guard on the ice all night. A bath was heated near the shore to break them. About the third hour of the night the Lord sent them relief: suddenly it grew light, the ice melted and the water of the lake grew warm. The guard Aglaius, who was not asleep, saw above the head of each martyr a crown of light; he counted thirty-⁠nine, for the one who had fled had lost his crown. He stripped, said "I too am a Christian" and joined the martyrs, praying: "Lord God, I believe in You, in Whom these soldiers believe; join me to them, that I may suffer with Your servants." The next day the executioners broke the soldiers' shins with hammers, the bodies were burned and the bones thrown into the river. After three days the martyrs appeared to Bishop Peter of Sebaste, who gathered their bones and buried them with honour. Sisinius is in the list of the forty.

He is commemorated on 22 March, in the new style; the common commemoration of the Forty is on 9 March.