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Biography

Basil of Amasea

Portrait of Basil of Amasea

About Basil of Amasea

Basil of Amasea was a bishop in Pontus remembered among the Christians persecuted under Licinius. The church biography associates him with the councils of Ancyra and Neocaesarea in 314 and notes Athanasius’s later respect for him.

A later Passion connects his arrest with sheltering a Christian woman named Glaphyra, but the entry judges that narrative unauthentic and legendary. Accounts differ over the manner and year of his death.

The claim that he attended Nicaea in 325 conflicts with his earlier death and with the listed bishop of Amasea at that council. His April commemoration preserves his memory as a bishop and martyr.

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