The Orthodox Christians following the old calendar church observe the Forty Martyrs of Sebaste or the Holy Forty on March 22. They go to church to confess their sins and to give alms.
According to biblical accounts, the forty soldiers 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. The 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 joined the remaining thirty-nine. Thus the number of forty remained complete. At daybreak, the stiffened bodies of the confessors, which still showed signs of life, were burned and the ashes cast into a river.
“This great feast is one of the few feasts of Great Lent. It is marked at exactly half of Lent in order to remind us of the power of faith. Tomorrow’s feast - Holy Cross Sunday – is devoted to the cross of Jesus Christ and is also a great feast representing the sacrifice and love of the Saviour for the people,” said Eugen Onicov, of Saint Panthelemon Church.
People say the Holy Cross Sunday also signifies the revival of nature and is celebrated by strict fasting and prayer.
