Martyr
Martyr Xanthius of Sebaste
† ок. 320
Martyr Xanthius of Sebaste — a soldier of the XII Legion, one of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, tortured to death under Emperor Licinius (c. 320) for refusing to renounce Christ: the soldiers were stripped and left overnight on the ice of a lake near Sebaste in Armenia.
Martyr Xanthius was a soldier of the XII Legion (Fulminata), stationed in the city of Sebaste in Armenia, one of the 40 Christian soldiers of that legion brought before the governor Agricolaus under Emperor Licinius (c. 320) and who firmly refused to offer sacrifice to the pagan gods.
For confessing Christ, all forty were stripped naked and left overnight on the ice of a lake near the city in bitter frost, while a warm bathhouse was set up on the shore as a temptation. In the morning the surviving soldiers had their legs broken and their bodies were burned.
His feast is kept on March 9/22, among the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.
NOTE: the original stub was an unprocessed image caption from pravicon.com for a miniature from the Iviron Monastery (Mount Athos, late 15th c.) — it has been reworked into a coherent life; the previously empty feast-date and life-dates fields have been filled in. A prior error in the verification_note ("Aug 9" instead of the correct "March 22") has been corrected.