20,000 Martyrs burned at Nicomedia including Glycerios the Presbyter, Zeno, Theophilus the Deacon, Dorotheus, Mardonius, Migdonius the Deacon, Indysos, Gorgonios, Peter, Euthymios, Secundos, Nicostrates, the Women martyrs Agatha, Domna, Theophila, Antonia Antonia and others

In the Great Persecution under Diocletian, Nicomedia, the emperor’s residence in Asia Minor, saw many Christians put to death. The historian Eusebius, a contemporary, describes the torture of the court officials Peter, Dorotheus and Gorgonius in 303. The Byzantine tradition adds that on the feast of the Nativity Diocletian had the doors of a church closed while the faithful were inside and set it on fire, and it counts twenty thousand dead.

The same day recalls others put to death in the city: the priest Glycerius, who was burned; Zeno, a soldier who mocked the emperor’s sacrifice; the deacon Theophilus; and the women Domna, Agatha and Theophila, among many others.