Anastasius the Persian

About Anastasius the Persian

Anastasius the Persian began life as Magundat, a soldier in the Persian army. The account of his conversion connects his questions about Christianity with the captured cross brought from Jerusalem into Persia.

The Orthodox Church in America's life describes seven years spent in a Jerusalem monastery after his baptism as Anastasius. There he read accounts of martyrs, whose faithfulness deeply impressed him. He later left for Caesarea in Palestine, where he was arrested and refused to abandon Christianity under threats and promises of reward.

His death is dated January 22, 628.

Robin Norris's review of Carmela Vircillo Franklin's critical study identifies the execution site with modern Kirkuk, Iraq. His body was subsequently taken to Jerusalem. It describes a Greek account written in Jerusalem in 630 using an eyewitness's testimony about his death. His story crossed languages as well as borders: Bede later revised a Latin version, helping transmit the Persian monk's memory in the West.

At Rome's Tre Fontane, the abbey church consecrated by Honorius III in 1221 retained an earlier church's dedication to Anastasius. In 1370, Vincent's name was added when that Spanish martyr's relics reached the monastery. The shared dedication belongs to the later history of his veneration, not to the company in which Anastasius lived.

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