The 40 Holy Martyrs icon, Handmade Greek Orthodox icon Forty Martyrs of Sebaste, Byzantine art wall hanging icon wood plaque, religious gift

This byzantine icon is a lithography with double varnish layer to ensure vivid colors and waterproof properties depicting The Holy 40 Martyrs of Sebaste in a God inspired artwork abiding to the Athonian technique that was gives this icon unique religious and aesthetic value.

St. Constantine the Great issued an edict in the year 313, granting Christians religious freedom, and officially recognizing Christianity as equal with paganism under the law. But Licinius, his co-ruler and a pagan, continued to persecute the Christians of the East. He also purged Christians from his own army, fearing mutiny.

According to St. Basil, forty 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 a supernatural brilliancy overshadowing them and at once proclaimed himself a Christian, threw off his garments, and placed himself beside the thirty-nine soldiers of Christ. 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 charred bones were cast into a river so that Christians would not gather them up.