Martyr Flavius of Sebaste

Martyr Flavius was one of forty Christian soldiers serving in Sebaste (Lesser Armenia) as part of the XII "Fulminata" Legion, who refused to sacrifice to pagan idols during the persecution under Emperor Licinius in the winter of 320. As punishment they were stripped and left standing overnight on the ice of a lake, with a heated bathhouse left nearby as temptation. One soldier could not endure the trial and fled to the bathhouse, where he died; a guard, having witnessed a miraculous vision of crowns descending upon the martyrs, believed and voluntarily took his place, restoring the number to forty, and froze together with them. In the morning the survivors' legs were broken and their bodies burned; the remains, cast into a river, were later recovered by the faithful. Flavius's name is firmly established in the standard list of the Forty Martyrs. No individual biographical details about him have survived in the sources. His memory is kept on March 9/22.

IMPORTANT: not to be confused with a completely different saint — Hierarch Flavian I of Antioch (a separate card), whose name (Flavian) is similar-sounding but not identical to Flavius.