The Holy Martyr Basiliscus the Soldier, of Comana (308)
Basiliscus was a kinsman of St. Theodore the Tyro. He was tortured together with Eutropius and Cleonicus. When the latter two were crucified and had died (March 3), Basiliscus was returned to prison. At that time the emperor’s deputy was being replaced, and so Basiliscus remained imprisoned for a long time. Basiliscus prayed with tears that God would not deprive him of a martyr’s death. After he had prayed at length, the Lord Jesus Himself appeared to him, promised to fulfill his wish, and sent him to his village to bid farewell to his mother and brothers. Then a new deputy, Agrippa, arrived and ordered that Basiliscus be brought from the village immediately. While Basiliscus was on his way from the village to the town of Amasea, the Lord worked a great miracle through His martyr, as a result of which many people believed in Christ. Agrippa ordered the martyr to offer a sacrifice to the idol Apollyon. “‘Apollyon’ means ‘destroyer,’” said Basiliscus, and with fervent prayer he turned the idol into dust and burned the temple with fire from heaven. The frightened Agrippa attributed this to magic and ordered that Basiliscus be beheaded. At that mo- ment, Agrippa went insane. In his madness, he went to the scaffold, found a little blood of the martyr in the dust, and placed it under his belt, and was healed. Coming to his senses, he was baptized. Marinus, a citizen of Comana, later built a church over the relics of the saint, at the place of Basiliscus’s execution, and many afflicted people found healing there.
