Forty Martyrs of Sebaste

The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty (Katharevousa and Ancient Greek: Ἅγιοι Τεσσαράκοντα; Demotic: Άγιοι Σαράνταcode: ell promoted to code: el ) were a group of Roman soldiers in the Legio XII Fulminata (Armed with Lightning) whose martyrdom in the year 320 AD for the Christian faith is recounted in traditional martyrologies.

They were killed near the city of Sebaste, in Lesser Armenia (present-day Sivas in Turkey), victims of the persecutions of Licinius who, after 316, persecuted the Christians of the East. The earliest account of their existence and martyrdom is given by Bishop Basil of Caesarea (370–379) in a homily he delivered on their feast day. The Feast of the Forty Martyrs is thus older than Basil himself, who eulogised them only fifty or sixty years after their deaths.