Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of GraphSearch.
Concept
Anastasius of Persia
Summary
Saint Anastasius of Persia (whose given name was Magundat), was originally a Zoroastrian soldier in the Sasanian army. He later became a convert to Christianity and was martyred in 628.
Anastasius was born in the city of Ray. He was the son of a magus named Bau. He had a brother whose name is unknown. He was a cavalryman in the army of Khosrow II (r. 590–628) and participated in the capture of the True Cross in Jerusalem, which was carried to the Sasanian capital Ctesiphon.
The occasion prompted him to ask for information about the Christian religion. He then experienced a conversion of faith, left the army, became a Christian, and afterwards a monk at the monastery of Saint Savvas (Mar Saba) in Jerusalem. He was baptized by Modestus, receiving the Christian name Anastasius to honor the resurrection of Jesus Christ ("Anástasis" in Greek).
After seven years of monastic observance, he was moved by the Holy Ghost to go in quest of martyrdom and went to Caesarea, then subject to the Sasanians. There he interrupted and ridiculed the Zoroastrian priests for their religion, and was as a result arrested by the local marzban, taken prisoner, cruelly tortured to make him abjure, and finally carried down near the Euphrates, to a place called Barsaloe (or Bethsaloe according to the Bollandists), where his tortures were continued while at the same time the highest honors in the service of King Khosrow II as a magus were promised him if he would renounce Christianity.
Finally, after refusing to abjure, with seventy others, he was strangled to death and decapitated on January 22, 628.
His body, which was thrown to the dogs but left untouched by them, was carried from the place of his martyrdom to Palestine, then to Constantinople, and finally to Rome where the relics were venerated at the Tre Fontane Abbey.
A Passio written in Greek was devoted to the saint. An adapted Latin translation, possibly by Archbishop Theodore of Canterbury, was available to the Anglo-Saxon church historian Bede, who criticized the result and took it upon himself to 'improve' it.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.