Hieromartyr Blaise, Bishop of Sebaste

Blaise was bishop of Sebaste in Cappadocia (today's Sivas in Turkey) in the time of the great persecutions. According to his Life, he hid in a cave on Mount Argeus, where wild animals came to him for his blessing and healing, until the hunters of the governor Agricolaus found him. On the way to prison, the Life tells, he saved a boy who was choking on a fishbone and made a wolf give back a poor widow's piglet; the widow later brought him food in prison.

Seven women who gathered his blood were arrested and, after they threw the governor's idols into a lake, put to death. Blaise himself was beheaded with two boys, c. 316, under Licinius. In the West, the blessing of throats on his feast recalls the story of the fishbone.