Martyr Basilissa of Nicomedia

Basilissa of Nicomedia was a child martyr of the early fourth century who suffered during the persecution of the emperor Diocletian. According to the synaxarion, she was a girl of nine when the governor of Nicomedia, Alexander, ordered her arrest and sought to compel her to renounce Christ. She is commemorated on September 3, the same day as Hieromartyr Anthimus, Bishop of Nicomedia, and the company of martyrs who suffered with him in that city.

The accounts relate that, despite her youth, Basilissa showed an unshakable firmness in her fidelity to Christ and refused to deny him. For this she was subjected to protracted and intense torture, in which, by tradition, her whole body was covered with wounds. Through the grace of God she was preserved alive and unharmed, a deliverance that those present understood as a manifestation of divine power.

The tradition records that the governor Alexander, seeing these wonders, repented and confessed himself a Christian, and was afterward baptized by Bishop Anthimus of Nicomedia. According to the synaxarion he lived only a short while in deep repentance before departing peacefully. Basilissa herself reposed some while after him; her death is described as peaceful and accompanied by miraculous signs of God's mercy rather than by execution. Some accounts place her repose in the year 309.