The PriestMartyr Athanasias, bishop of the Cilician city of Tarsus, who baptised the Nun Anthysa, was beheaded by the sword under the emperor Aurelian (270-275). The Nun Anthysa, a native of the city of Seleucia (in Syria), was the daughter of illustrious pagans. Learning of the teachings of Christ, she under pretense of visiting her benefactress instead journeyed off to Tarsus to Saint Athanasias and received Baptism from him. Her parents were enraged at their daughter for becoming a Christian. But she then – having received monastic tonsure from Saint Athanasias – settled in the wilderness, where she spent 23 years at ascetic deeds and died at the end of the III Century. The Martyrs Charisimos and Neophytes, who had been baptised together with the Nun Anthysa, were her servants and they too accepted death for Christ.




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