42 Martyrs of Ammoria in Phrygia: Theodore, Constantine, Aetius, Theophilus, Basoes, Callistus, and others

In 838 the caliph al-Mu'tasim took Amorium in Phrygia, the home city of the dynasty of the emperor Theophilus, after a defender named Boiditzes betrayed a weak stretch of the wall. The city was sacked and burned, and forty-two senior officers and officials were taken captive to Syria, among them the patricians Constantine, Aetius and Theophilus, Theodore Krateros, Melissenus, Callistus and Basoes.

For seven years they were held in chains and urged to accept Islam, and they refused. In 845 they were beheaded on 6 March; according to their Life, Theodore Krateros, who had once left the clergy, encouraged the others and went first. Their bodies were thrown into the Euphrates, and Christians recovered and buried them.