Martyr Lysimachus of Sebaste

Martyr Lysimachus is one of the "Forty Martyrs of Sebaste," Christian soldiers (traditionally of the XII "Fulminata" Legion) serving in Sebaste, Lesser Armenia (modern Sivas, Turkey). In 320, during the reign of co-emperor Licinius, they were ordered by their commander to sacrifice to pagan gods and, refusing to renounce Christ, were subjected to cruel punishment.

At the height of Great Lent, on a bitterly cold winter night, all forty were stripped naked and driven onto the ice of a frozen lake outside the city; a heated bathhouse was left on the shore as temptation. One soldier could not endure the trial and ran to the bathhouse — and died there instantly. A guard standing watch on the shore, seeing crowns of heavenly light shining over the remaining thirty-nine, declared himself a Christian, undressed, and joined the martyrs, restoring the number to forty. In the morning the survivors' shins were broken with hammers and their bodies burned; Christians secretly gathered the remains as relics.

St. Basil the Great and St. Gregory of Nyssa each devoted separate homilies to this feat. Lysimachus's name is preserved in the traditional list of forty names, but, as with most of them, no separate personal episode of his life has survived — only the group's shared feat is known.

His feast is kept on March 9/22 in the general Synaxis of the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste.

NOTE: an outdated entry in the database also gave the date "August 9" — no confirmation for this date was found on verification; the date of the general commemoration, March 9/22, has been retained as the sole correct one.