c. 334 – 372
A Goth of the Buzau valley in what is now Romania, baptized as a Christian, known for his strict and temperate life. During the persecution of King Athanaric he refused to eat food sacrificed to idols and was drowned in the river Musaeus in 372.
The Holy and Glorious Martyr Savva (Sabbas) the Goth
Savva (Sabbas) the Goth was a fourth-century Christian of Gothic ethnicity who lived in a village in the Buzău river valley, in the Wallachia region of what is now Romania. By tradition he was born around 334 and converted to Christianity in his youth, serving the religious community, possibly as a cantor or reader.
Known for a strict and temperate life, he was martyred in 372 during the persecution of Christians launched by the Tervingi king Athanaric. Refusing to eat food sacrificed to idols and openly confessing his faith, he was tortured and drowned in the river Musæus, identified with the Buzău, a tributary of the Danube.
The surviving account of his suffering, the Passion of St Sabbas, was transmitted in Greek and is valued by historians as a rare window onto Gothic village life, social structures, and governmental organization in the fourth century.
Around 369 King Athanaric began a systematic persecution of Christians in his territory. When the authorities demanded that villagers consume pagan sacrificial meat, Savva conspicuously refused.
When confronted about his faith by agents of a Gothic noble, he declared, according to the Passion, that no one should swear an oath on his behalf, professing plainly that he was a Christian. He was at first sent into exile but was later permitted to return to his village.
In 372, following the celebration of Easter with the priest Sansalas, the Gothic prince Atharid, son of the sub-king Rothesteus, came to arrest the clergy. Savva was seized and subjected to brutal torment: dragged naked through thorn bushes, racked alongside Sansalas, and bound to a wagon wheel and whipped. Throughout he continued to refuse the pagan meat offerings.
The Passion relates that one of Atharid's retinue hurled a pestle at him with lethal force, yet he reportedly sustained no injury. Atharid then sentenced him to death by drowning in the river Musæus. As the soldiers led him to the water, Savva reportedly urged them to carry out their orders without delay and praised God along the way. He was held underwater with a branch until he drowned on April 12, 372.
Christians secretly recovered Savva's remains. The relics came into the keeping of Bishop Ascholius of Thessalonica, and Basil of Caesarea honored Savva as an athlete of Christ and a martyr for the Truth.
Basil later requested the relics from Junius Soranus, the military commander of Scythia Minor serving the Roman Empire in the Danubian region, and received them in 373 or 374, accompanied by a letter written in Greek, possibly by Bretannio of Tomis.
The Passion of St Sabbas survives as an early Christian martyrdom account and is regarded as historically significant for its documentation of Gothic social and political structures of the fourth century. Savva is venerated in the Eastern Orthodox, Oriental Orthodox, and Roman Catholic churches.
Principal feast observed April 24 in the Eastern Orthodox calendar (April 12 in the West); OCA also commemorates him April 15.