|
The Martyress Bassa with her sons Theognios, Agapios and Pistos Commemorated on August 21 The Martyress
Bassa with her sons Theognios, Agapios and Pistos, lived in the city of Macedonian
Edessa and she was married to a pagan-priest. From childhood she had been
raised in the Christian faith, which she passed on to her sons. During the time
of the emperor Maximian Galerius (305-311), the husband reported to the
governor on his wife and children. All of them, in spite of threats, refused to
offer sacrifice to idols. They took the eldest son, Theognios, and tore at him
with iron claws. They flayed the skin of the lad Agapios from head to chest,
but the martyr did not utter a sound. Finally, they began to torture also the
youngest son Pistos. The mother did not hesitate to encourage them to endure
the suffering for Christ. Then they beheaded the lads. (By one account, the
three martyred brothers suffered at Edessa in Macedonia; by another account –
at Larissa in Thessaly their homeland). They locked up Saint Bassa in prison
and exhausted her with hunger, but an Angel strengthened her with heavenly
food. Under successive tortures she remained unharmed from fire, water and
beasts. When they brought her to a pagan temple, she shattered the statue of
Zeus. Then they threw the martyress into a whirlpool in the sea. But to
everyone's surprise a ship sailed up, and three radiant men pulled her up (the
Monk Nikodemos of the Holy Mountain suggested, that these were her children,
martyred earlier). After 8 days Saint Bassa came by ship to the governor of the
island of Alona, not far from Kyzika, in the Prepontid or Marmora Sea. After a
beating with canes they beheaded her. © 1996-2001 by translator Fr. S. Janos. |
|