The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

Forty soldiers of a Roman legion stationed at Sebaste in Armenia who refused to sacrifice under Licinius around 320 and were stripped and left all night on a frozen lake, with a warm bath house lit on the shore for any who would deny Christ. One went. He died on the threshold, and one of the guards, seeing crowns come down on the thirty-nine, threw off his clothes and walked out on to the ice to make the forty. St Basil preached on them at Sebaste a generation later, and his homily is how the Church has told it since. Their day falls in Lent and is kept with the Presanctified Liturgy. Feast: March 9.