The Orthodox Christians who follow the Julian calendar mark the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste on March 22. This year, according to synod regulations, the feast will be celebrated on March 23.

According to eparchial secretary of the Moldovan Metropolitan Church Vadim Cheibas, the change was made in order to simplify the services as a number of rites overlapped on Thursday and Friday. “On Friday, they read the cannon of Saint Theodore and the sweet wheat porridge was blessed. The Holy Forty couldn’t be remembered on Thursday when they read the canon of Saint Andrei Criteanu,” Vadim Cheibas stated for IPN.

The Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty were a group of Roman soldiers whose martyrdom in 320 for the Christian faith is recounted in traditional martyrologies. They were killed near the city of Sebaste (present-day Sivas in Turkey), in Lesser Armenia, victims of the persecutions of Licinius, who after 316, persecuted the Christians of the East. Among the martyrs was Valerie, whose name was given to a church located in Chisinau’s Riscani district.

Archpriest Octavian Mosin, of God’s Meeting Church, has told IPN that this year the feast coincides with the first week of Lent. The Christians will meet for a common prayer to remember the Holy Forty and to ask for forgiveness.