Christians celebrate Forty Martyrs

The Orthodox Christians who follow the Julian calendar celebrate the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty on March 22. The faithful go to the church to confess one's sins, to receive communion and to distribute special bread, priest Ioan Ciuntu, bishop of the Chisinau-based Church “St Teodora de la Sihla”, has told Info-Prim Neo. According to Ioan Ciuntu, the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste were a group of Roman soldiers, who have become martyrs for their Christian faith in 320. They were killed near Sebaste, in Lesser Armenia, being victims of the persecutions of Licinus, who, after the year 316, persecuted the Christians of the East. The forty soldiers who had openly confessed themselves Christians were condemned by the prefect to be exposed naked upon a frozen pond near Sebaste on a bitterly cold night, that they might freeze to death. Among the confessors, one yielded and, leaving his companions, sought the warm baths near the lake which had been prepared for any who might prove inconstant. One of the guards set to keep watch over the martyrs beheld at this moment a supernatural brilliancy overshadowing them and at once proclaimed himself a Christian, threw off his garments, and placed himself beside the thirty-nine soldiers of Christ. Thus the number of forty remained complete. Ioan Ciuntu said that the women usually make forty little knot-shaped pieces of bread in honor of the Forty Martyrs and distribute them to people. The Forty Martyrs are considered protectors of the vegetation and agriculture. It is said that one should drink 40 glasses of wine this day so as to be healthy and protected from disease.