4th century
The Forty Holy Virgin Martyrs
Forty women ascetics martyred together with their teacher, the deacon Ammon.
Biography
These women ascetics lived in Adrianople in Thrace under Emperor Licinius. Around 305 the local governor arrested them as Christians together with their teacher, the deacon Ammon, and urged them to worship the idols.
According to tradition, when they refused, Ammon was tortured first and then led together with his disciples to Heraclea, where they were thrown to wild beasts that left them unharmed. In the end ten of them died at the stake, eight were beheaded with Ammon, and the rest were put to death by other means.
Their names are preserved in an ancient martyrology, though later synaxaria give a partly different list.