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The feast of these martyrs, which on the Julian calendar always falls during Great Lent (as a result of which, the "propers" for this feast are contained in the Lenten Tridion, the primary service book used during the fast), seems to have been celebrated within only a few decades of the suffering of these martyrs. The hagiography of the 40 martyrs usually shows the apostate running for the bathhouse (to meet his death) while one of the guards removes his clothing to join the other martyrs on the ice and make up the number of the company. Eventually, one of the forty did recant, but his place on the lake was taken by one of the guards, who was so moved by the steadfastness of the martyrs that he confessed Christ and joined the other 39 on the frozen lake. These Christians were put out in the middle of a frozen lake to die of cold and exposure, and told that if they would but recant Christ, they would be allowed to warm up at a nearby bathhouse which had been constructed on the edge of the lake. The story (which you can read here) tells of 40 Cappadocian Christians in the Roman army in the Eastern half of the empire under the rule of the Emperor Licinius, the co-ruler and rival of Constantine the Great until 324. This feast is a source of much contemplation and reflection for me, due in large part to the curious place it held in my own Baptist upbringing. Today, on the Revised Julian Calendar used by the Orthodox Church in America, it is the feast of the 40 Holy Martyrs of Sebaste.