Xanthius of Sebaste

Holy Martyr Xanthius of Sebaste is one of the forty martyrs of Sebaste in Armenia, Christian soldiers from Cappadocia who suffered for Christ around the year 320. The Azbyka page honours them all together and says nothing particular about him.

Constantine the Great had issued in 313 the law of freedom of faith, which the co-⁠emperor Licinius had also signed, but in Licinius's lands the persecution continued. At Sebaste in Armenia the commander Agricolaus tried to force the forty Cappadocian soldiers to sacrifice to idols. They refused. In winter, at dusk, they were led bound to a nearby lake and set stripped on the ice. The frost seized their limbs, and the torment was harder because on the shore a bath had been heated as a temptation: whoever wished to save his life had only to tell the jailer that he had renounced Christ. All night the soldiers bore it manfully, encouraging one another and singing hymns to God. In the morning one of them could bear it no longer, came out of the water and ran to the bath, but fell dead as soon as the warm air touched him. The jailer Aglaius saw a heavenly light over the martyrs, confessed himself a Christian and joined the thirty-⁠nine. The tormentors, arriving a little later, found them alive and seemingly warmed, broke their shins with hammers and threw them into the fire, and then cast the half-⁠burned bones into the river. After three days the martyrs appeared to Peter, bishop of Sebaste, who gathered their bones and buried them with honour.

The names of the forty have been preserved: Kyrion, Candidus, Domnus, Hesychius, Heraclius, Smaragdus, Eunoicus, Valens, Vivianus, Claudius, Priscus, Theodulus, Eutychius, John, Xanthius, Ilian, Sisinius, Angias, Aetius, Flavius, Acacius, Ecdicius, Lysimachus, Alexander, Elias, Gorgonius, Theophilus, Domitian, Gaius, Leontius, Athanasius, Cyril, Sacerdon, Nicholas, Valerius, Philoctimon, Severian, Chudion, Meliton and Aglaius. Their commemoration falls on 9 March in the old style, which is 22 March in the new style, a day on which the strictness of Great Lent is eased and the Liturgy of the Presanctified Gifts is served.