Martyr Gordius at Cæsarea in Cappadocia

Gordius was born in Caesarea in Cappadocia and served as a centurion in the Roman army. When persecution broke out in the early 4th century, under the Emperor Licinius, he gave up his rank and went to live in the mountains.

On the day of a festival of Mars, when the whole city had gathered in the hippodrome for the chariot races, he came down from the mountains, walked into the middle of the crowd and shouted the words of Isaiah: "I was found by those who did not seek me." Brought before the governor, he refused rank and wealth in exchange for denying Christ. Friends begged him to deny Christ only with his lips; he refused and was beheaded. His story is known chiefly from a sermon of Basil the Great, preached in Caesarea a few decades later.