Martyr Barypsabas

Barypsabas was a hermit of the East venerated as a martyr and remembered in the synaxarion as a guardian of a vessel said to contain the blood of Christ. He is commemorated on September 10 and is associated with Dalmatia, where, by tradition, he was killed in the second century. The surviving account of his life is brief and legendary in character, transmitted chiefly through later Byzantine sources rather than a detailed early passion.

According to the tradition preserved in the synaxarion, a righteous man named Jacob, present at the crucifixion of Christ, collected the blood and water that flowed from the Savior's side in a vessel and concealed its contents by filling it with oil. Many healings and miracles were reported from the vessel during Jacob's lifetime. After his death it passed to two hermits, and one of them, before dying, entrusted it to Barypsabas, who likewise was said to work healings through it.

The synaxarion relates that men who had heard of the miracles attached to the vessel resolved to seize it for their own profit. They attacked Barypsabas by night and killed him, but did not find in the vessel what they sought. Before his death Barypsabas had given the vessel to his disciple, so that the relic passed on rather than falling into the hands of his attackers.